


Rhinestones and True Gems

by vegalocity



Series: A Love Above Love [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Angst, Drabbles, F/F, Fake!character death, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-19 02:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4729451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegalocity/pseuds/vegalocity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A compilation of Mabifica drabbles inspired by OTP prompts</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stood up

**Author's Note:**

> _"imagine that you’ve been stood up by your douche of a boyfriend on date night and the waitress keeps asking if you’re ready to order but you keep asking for more time hoping that he’s just late. people are starting to look at you with those apologetic looks like they know and you start to feel worse and worse about the whole situation but as you decide to just get up and leave, this boy you’ve never seen sits down explaining loudly “sorry i’m so late, babe, traffic is crazy right now.” and he quietly adds, “i’m Michael. just go with it, yeah? whoever didn’t bother to show up is a dick.” and so you do go with it because he’s being sweet and trying to save you (and plus he’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen) and as you’re leaving the restaurant after the best non-planned date ever, he asks you out for real this time."_ (credit to likehemmins)

She didn’t want to do this.

Why in god’s name did she say yes?

Pacifica Northwest huffed a breath to herself as she checked her phone for the dozenth time in the past half hour. 

She was supposed to be out to dinner with some boy. The heir to some kind of big family run business, she didn’t even really remember what family he was in or anything. She was only here because her parents told her she needed to stop with her little ‘spinstress’ act and let the world know she was ready to be interested in dating.

She was Seventeen after all.

She’d always have to bite her tongue when her parents would ‘lovingly’ cajole her into dating.

and she’d have to do it twice as hard in the face of this boy. He’d looked down his nose at her when they'd first met, like the idea that he’d be ‘dating’ a girl like her was only something he must do.

She couldn't even remember his name.

Robert? Richard? Ricardo? Something with an R….

Anyway, he was a dick, and she wasn’t even interested in guys, but she knew that he was just as forced into this situation as she was.

So maybe they’d just spend the night bad mouthing their parents for forcing them into this situation.

As it was it had almost been an hour past the time he was supposed to meet her here. The fanciest french restaurant in Gravity falls.

The Waiter kept passing her by, asking if she'd like to order, but she’d just grumble a bit and tell him she’d wait another few minutes. 

She didn’t want to be here but if she backed out early it’d be her ass.

Eventually the waiter stopped making eye contact with her. The people around her were throwing her pitying glances, and she could feel her face start to heat up.  
How embarrassing, getting stood up on a date she hadn’t even wanted to go on.

Well fine, if he decided he had better things to do than appease either of their parents then she’d just have to…

Right as the decision began dancing around her head and she started resolutely doing a final inventory of her purse the door of the restaurant slammed open.

The resounding bang jumped about the walls as someone rushed inside.

“I’m here I’m here! I am soooo sorry babe! Waddles needed an emergency vet visit and I was too worried to remember to bring my phone!” A high voice called out through the restaurant as a young brunette girl, maybe her age, hastily walked up to the table.

She was wearing this pink floral print dress lined with lace, a white cardigan with what looked like hand stitched jewels forming little shooting stars up the lapels. 

She smoothly slid into the opposite seat on the booth smiling apologetically.

“You know how pygmy pigs are! They eat everything and then need to get their stomachs pumped!” Pacifica was about to sneer, ask who the hell this girl with her (admittedly cute) pink with white lace headband was and why on earth she was pretending to be her date.

As though sensing her thoughts the girl shielded her mouth and whispered to her. “I’ve been waiting for a seat for a half hour and saw you. Whoever stood you up is a jerk. My name is Mabel.”

“Mabel.” She repeated, a confused furrow to her brow, before she noticed with a start that almost everyone in the restaurant was staring at them (except the hostess who was grinning knowingly into her table listing) “You.. You had me worried sick! I thought you were in a car crash or something!” she tried to laugh a bit, and the other girl encouraged it by nodding her head. 

“I’m sorry! My brother wanted me to cancel but I felt horrible for leaving my phone at home!”

-  
Mabel as it turned out was.. nice…

She and her twin brother were staying with their Great Uncles (also twins) in town while they finished up school.

Her pygmy pig, Waddles, had been hers for a good five years after she’d won him at some sort of state fair.

She loved a lot of the same music Pacifica did, maybe to a bigger degree than her (she certainly never practiced kissing on a poster of Chubby Z) but it turned out she was just as excited as Pacifica as for the next Simon Snow movie to come out. 

“I mean I know he and Baz don’t actually hook up at the end, and I do like his thing with Agnus, but ugh, how amazing would it have been?” Pacifica nodded in response. 

“And could you imagine Penelope setting them up all the time? Oh she’d love that.” was the span of most of their conversation.  
Eventually they were talking around their meals, then around the scoops of ice cream Mabel insisted on paying for, despite her far lower class budget.

She hadn’t had this much fun on a would be date in the longest time. 

Didn’t hurt that Mabel was very pretty too. Even the overly sparkly and lay style on her dress was oddly charming.

When the time came for Mabel to call her Great Uncle to pick her up, Pacifca sat with her on the curb, the chill of the night air biting her exposed arms, but not unpleasantly.

Just enough for a length of gooseflesh to crawl up her upper arms.

Before she’d even had a chance to turn her down Mabel was tugging off her cardigan and offering it to her.

For such a small lining of cashmere the sparkly white garment was really warm.

It clashed horribly against her deep purple cocktail dress, but Mabel had immediately smiled so wide at her for taking her up.

“I haven’t had a chance to say thank you yet.” she mumbled against the soft sleeves of the cardigan.

“Huh? what for?” Mabel looked at her with such honest to god confusion that Pacifica nearly laughed out loud.

“For being a stranger's date all night so she wouldn’t have to be embarrassed at getting stood up.” Mabel laughed and waved a hand.

“No no! Don’t worry about it! I’m as Pan as a frying pan, and you’re adorable!” 

She could feel her cheeks heat up at that, but for once the blush wasn’t out of embarrassment. She smiled slightly and resisted the urge to playfully elbow the other girl.

“Well… I’m not sure how my parents would feel about this, but… Would you like to maybe do something next Friday? There’s an Italian place down the street from here...” Mabel’s smile widened a bit, showing off the silver of a stick-in retainer that Pacifica hadn’t noticed until now.

“Like a real date?” Before Pacifica even had a chance to confirm that yes, she was asking her on a real date, Mabel let out a small high pitched squeal and leaved over to wrap her arms around Pacifica’s shoulders.

“I’d love to Paz!” 

“Paz?” She repeated, the small twist of joy in her gut at Mabel’s confirmation pushed off in place of confusion.

“Well Pacifica is a bit of a mouthful, and it’s Hebrew for Golden!”

A pair of headlights flashed in the darkness, as an old beaten up car pulled into the parking lot.

“Oh! that’s me!” Pacifica moved to take off Mabel’s Cardigan to return it to her, but froze in place when the brunette leaned over and gave her a light kiss on the cheek.

“Keep the sweater for now! Give it back on Friday!” 

She lifted a hand to wave goodbye as Mabel drove off in the old red car.

And pretended that her cheeks weren’t on fire when she got into her own car.


	2. Nova

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spindletrees “ _Like it would make a lot of sense for superheroes to like, double up. two or more people alternating in the one suit: ...in fact “AH YES THE SUPERHERO IS BADLY INJURED, NOW IS MY TIME TO TAKE OVER THE WO-wait what the fuck? I saw you take a bullet literally two days ago??? foiled again”_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured we needed a little levity, so here's a Superhero AU

It was just an average mission. The Cipher, their family’s nemesis since before she and her brother were born, had decided to set a hit on the recently orphaned Matriarch of the Northwest fortune, Pacifica.

So Naturally, Mabel Pines, AKA Nova, and her twin brother and Partner in heroics, Dipper AKA Druid, had taken it upon themselves to become her temporary personal super bodyguards.

So far so good for the past week, there had been three attempted bombings from the Gleeful Baron, two snipers from the Blind Eye Clan, and a falling scaffolding courtesy of the Bullheart Brotherhood. Other than light scratches and some frazzled nerves, the heiress was completely unharmed. 

Dipper would primarily scope out Perimeter while they were at her mansion, while Mabel would spend a lot of time inside with Pacifica. 

She reasoned that it was because her brother was a considerable amount more antisocial than she was, and she didn’t usually have the opportunity to talk to people as Nova.

It totally wasn’t because she’d developed a bit of a crush on the blonde heiress.  
While Pacifica was to some degree a bit stuck up on brand names, she also happened to be startlingly down to Earth. Apparently she was glad to take over the Northwest fortune, if only because her parents never used it to help people, but now she could.

She’d done some volunteer work when her parents weren’t looking, child literacy and animal shelter type things.

And now that she was unafraid of backlash if she went too public, she reasoned she could volunteer for Public Cleanups, and Soup Kitchens, while actually donating money to these places and make a real difference.

She and Dipper may be stomping supervillains, but she knew most of them (well, maybe not Gleeful Baron or The Cipher) came from places of need. It was girls like Pacifica that would truly end day to day crime.

So really, Mabel hadn’t thought twice when Gleeful Baron sent another bomb to their location, to shove Pacifica out of the way of the rolling grenade between their feet, and covering the blast range with her side.

She wasn’t exactly invulnerable, Neither she nor Dipper were superman. But they both did have virtually indestructible suits that could absorb most explosions. Thank god one of their great uncles was not only a retired hero, but also a certified genius.

None the less a few shards of shrapnel did wiggle through the hem at her waist and lodge themselves into her hip.

Oh, Pacifica felt terrible about it, and Mabel tried not to preen under the attention as she was receiving as she and Dipper helped her walk back to the Northwest Mansion, where their Great Uncle Ford and Grunkle Stan were waiting.

Technically Grunkle Stan was her mentor when it came to heroics (his past as Deep Hunter with his super speed and super strength helped her with her agility and rope formation based powers) and Great Uncle Ford was Dipper’s mentor (His wire and intelligence based powers as Four Eyes helps Dipper with his technopathy and Hyper Observant tendencies)

But when Great Uncle Ford insisted that she stay benched until either the hit was taken off Pacifica, or until she was fully better, she knew if she didn’t listen he’d make her pay for her own bullheadedness.

She didn’t have to like it, but she knew.

All she could do was wince from the sidelines as Stan plucked the Shrapnel from her hip as Dipper Pacifica and Ford looked over the clues so far as to where the Cipher’s hideout may be.

-  
The Cipher had called her out. 

He’d called her out specifically too. He’d only take the hit off of Pacifica, if Nova came to fight him. 

Not Druid, not Deep Hunter and Four Eyes out of retirement, Nova and Nova alone.

It was probably because he knew she was injured and unable to fight at full capacity. The Cipher fought dirty like that.

She was still walking with a crutch, But the pain lacing up her side whenever she moved her leg was a little less than excruciating.

She’d fought on worse.

“I’ll have to go.” the response was immediate and predictable.

Dipper and Ford shouting at once that she couldn’t go near that monster, Stan pinching his nose bridge and looking like he was trying really hard to see things from her point of view and failing.

She had been planning to sneak out to face The Cipher and Fight, but god… she could barely remember that night after Pacifica walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

She’d looked into her eyes and very determinedly said ‘no’

The next thing Mabel remembered she was in a lavishly decorated room. 

Panic began to lace her blood when she realized that someone had taken her mask and uniform off, replaced with her favorite pair of fleece pajamas. Probably doped her up with painkillers too because her hip felt right as rain.

Her panic barely subsided when she noticed her phone was on the nightstand beside the bed.

The first thing that was on the news when she’d checked her phone was a headline from the Daily Bugle. 

“The Cipher Burns under Super Nova!”

Dipper was first to come into the room she’d identified, as one of the guest bedrooms in Northwest Manor. 

He wasn’t wearing his uniform either, and was grinning this massive cocky smirk she always hated to see on her brother’s face.

It always meant ‘I told you so’

He explained everything though.

Apparently while she was still down and hopped up on the strongest painkillers they had Pacifica had endorsed his help.

She’d taken her place as Nova in the fight with The Cipher, and had tranquilized her the night previous. 

He’d made her special boots and gloves that could make something close to her super agility, and special gauntlets on her arms that made her chords. Then she’d simply slapped on some electronic color alter hair dye (one of Ford’s newest inventions to help with secret identities, still a prototype) and she looked enough like Nova to fool The Cipher.

How in the world did their Great Uncle’s allow that? Stan hated rookies making rookie mistakes!

Unless… 

As Dipper walked out, saying something about getting someone, she put the pieces together.

Were they all in on it? While she was hurt, was everyone secretly training Pacifica? 

Were they trying to replace her? It seemed like if they could get any normal human to do the things she could… then there wouldn’t be much of a point in having her around anymore.

The door opened and Mabel jolted at the noise, arm held up, ready to throw a chord at the intruder.

Pacifica Northwest held up her hands in Surrender as she walked over to the bed, long blonde hair held back in a neat braid.

“Mercy, Mercy, I’m not gonna attack.”

Mabel tried not to let the flutter in her gut at the gentle smile from the other woman deter her from her anxious thought process.

Just because she had a thing for the other woman didn’t mean she wasn’t upset at being replaced by her.

“Yeah, uhm… How… exactly did you convince my family that you could be Nova for me?” She tried not to let the offense drip into her words, but if the way Pacifica flinched was any indication she’d failed.

“Well it was actually Drui… Dipper’s idea. Your brother is so protective of you, I’m surprised it took him this long to decide on it.”

Dipper was trying to replace her with someone else, to protect her? That didn’t make any sense…

“Yeah, He was way concerned about you overworking yourself and straining when you should be getting better...So I’ll take over Nova duties until you get better, and then we can like… trade off day by day.” Pacifica grinned slightly before holding her hand up to reveal a somewhat klunky looking watch.

The controller for Ford’s electronic hair dye?

“So wait… you’re going to trade off Nova time with me because my brother didn’t want me to overexert myself? Not out of some sort of wackadoo plot to replace me now that I’m Obsolete?” Pacifica looked honestly surprised at her for a moment, before her hair rapidly changed to bright pink.

“Oh shoot, That’s gotta be one of the bugs your great uncle was talking about.” She hit a few buttons on the watch before her hair turned back to her bright blonde “But… why would you think that? Just because there’s stuff that can make things close to your powers doesn’t mean there’s anyone that can actually do what you do! I’m just glad to do what I can to help!”

The way she said it was so earnest that Mabel couldn’t help the small blush creeping up her cheeks.

Well… If she was so determined to take up Superhero-ing…

“Who am I to stop that I guess? Well… I’m Mabel then. Mabel Pines.” Pacifica nodded and Mabel noted with amusement that the tips of her hair were changing to pink again.

“Nice to meet you Mabel Pines.”

“Back at ya Nova.”


	3. The VM-Freaking-As

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rockstar AU, no prompt credit, I juts really wanted to make a rockstar AU

Dipper Pines considered himself a reasonable guy. Considered himself responsible, but supportive.

So he didn’t think much when his twins sister ran up to him one day and insisted that she wanted to be a rockstar and try to bring back glam rock.

He simply offered to do the boring stuff and be her manager.

He honestly hadn’t expected it to go very far beyond their parent’s garage, doing little more than covers of 80s songs.

Thier great Uncles Stanford and Stanley had been her first ‘official’ gig. they wanted her to play for their entire small town on the 30 year anniversary of them finally getting their shit together and reconciling their family. 

‘Shooting Star’ had been a hit with the locals, both in her flare and her music.

Then she’d been recommended with the local news station, and next thing either of them knew they had exactly three production companies begging to give Shooting Star their endorsement.

And so here he was, in a heated argument with Northwest Records about just why neither he nor his ‘Client’ would accept them hiking the price of concert tickets anywhere higher than 50$ each. Newest Single maintaining Top 10 for almost a month or not.

The CEO of the company, Preston Northwest, was such a dick it actually made Dipper’s skin crawl to speak to him.

Honestly he’d much prefer talking to the Chairwoman, Pretson’s daughter Pacifica. Unlike her father, Pacifica actually seemed to understand that most of Mabel’s fan following cannot actually afford the outrageous numbers they keep trying to hike the ticket price up to.

Speaking of the blonde girl, she was actually supposed to be in the stadium at the moment, looking over Mabel’s newest work in progress, ‘Eternal Starlight’.

Dipper had been in the car with her as she’d written the first draft down into a well loved spiral notebook. 

He’d talked her out of mentioning space mermaids swimming in the solar wind.

SHe’d stuck her tongue out at him and asked his opinion on which lacy kerchief to wear once they reached Houston. He’d picked out the pink one, which she’d immediately paired with a black studded headband.

She was really enjoying bringing back 80’s aesthetic glam rock.

Not to diss any of the greats with ostentatious styles. Obviously those like Gaga and Daft Punk are in a rank all their own. But there was something about Shooting Star’s nostalgia factor paired with modern flair that just gave it a life of it’s own.

He spent the next hour in the Booth with the electricians as they did a runthrough of their next concert, Mabel was, as usual, excited and happy. REady to practice these songs until she passed out. 

Eventually, Dipper was joined by a certain blonde haired woman. Pacifica Northwest flipped her hair once to the stage hand in charge of keeping civilians out of the booth, and he immediately let her in.

“Was my Dad trying to hike the ticket prices again?”

“Yeah.” Pacifica groaned and hide her face in her hands for a moment.

“I am so sorry! We always end up in the black and he just keeps insisting that that’s not good enough! I’ll talk to him.” She smiled apologetically at Dipper before glancing back at the stage during a particularly powerful segment of Mabel’s newest hit ‘Moonlight’

Moonlight was a love song, as were a lot of Mabel’s most popular songs. But unlike the others it was actually hopeful. 

He wondered if she got a new crush at the time she had been writing it.

-  
He was half running through the hall after the Concert. Excited to the point where he was nearly bouncing off the walls.

He wondered idly if this is how his sister felt all the time.

The VMAs 

They wanted Mabel to perform one of her biggest hits, Stardust, at the VMAs and present the award for Best Female Artist.

Since everyone and their mother knew that Nicki Minaj had that award in the bag this year, Mabel would probably get to say hi to, and maybe even hug, Nicki herself.

Mabel would freak.

He’d barely thought when he’d burst into the dressing room.

It was Mabel, he’d spent 17 years of their existence sharing a room with her, and the first five years of that sharing a bath. 

He had been completely desensitized to his sister a long time ago.

What he had not been desensitized to, was his sister’s hyperamorus tendencies.

So, While neither of them would have minded if he’d simply burst in on her while she was changing out of her performance attire.

He certainly did mind bursting into her dressing room to find his sister dipped over a table, making out with Pacifica Northwest.

He’d nearly puked to tell the truth.

Well at least he knew who ‘Moonlight’ was about now.

-

He’d never imagined things to have gotten this far as he cheered for his sister at the VM-freaking-As as her ‘official date’. 

He’d expected when he’d existed college to use his Double Major in Criminal psychology and Forensics to become a detective, not use his minor in business industry to become his twin sister’s agent. 

But, even as he eyed the Northwest family a few seats to his side, and wondered how quickly the press would turn against her should the knowledge of her and Pacifica’s relationship ever leave them three; he supposed that their lives could have turned out far worse.


	4. 9 months 11 days 12 hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The-Staged-inadequacy “ _I hate to be the obvious headcanon-er but how great would it be if the AU where person A “dies” and person B quietly and brokenly soldiers on. And when person A comes back person B barely reacts at all until someone else speaks directly to person A. That’s when person B turns white and their hands shake as the clench and person B goes “you can see him to?” In a voice that makes them sound like a scared child. And person A who had been confused and hurt by their indifference; well their heart flat out breaks. And before either of them know it person B is cradled in A’s arms and they’re both shaking._ ”

They had been dating for two years when it happened.

Dipper had called her up, excitement lacing his voice as he talked about what he swore was an honest to god Alien crash site. He was there right then and he needed Mabel to come back him up.

The last thing he’d want was for the feds to capture the thing and insist it was a weather balloon or something.

Mabel couldn’t say no to her brother. Especially not when it meant adventure.

So Pacifica gave her a parting kiss on the cheek

The big ship looked like a giant cube, and if Mabel was more interested in Star Trek she probably would have called it a Borg Cube, needless to say, Dipper already made that reference. 

He’d noted that the outer hull wasn’t dangerous, it had long since cooled down from the crash and felt like a weird mix between Styrofoam and metal.

She told him to record her checking it out so he’d have proof they were there, before reaching out to run her hand along the side.

And then nothing.

Everything was encased in a bright white light. It felt like she was drifting. If she swung an arm her entire body would float in a circle.

She felt nothing, saw nothing, it was if the universe swallowed her hole.

The white light, surprisingly, didn’t hurt her eyes.

Nothing in her pockets were any help, nothing she threw would go more than a couple of feet before it stopped mid air and drifted back to her. 

Even her grappling hook did nothing. She shot it out and it extended about three feet before all force died on it and the hook gently bumped against her chest.

She was obviously stuck in a nowhere place that was inside the giant cube ship thing.

And there was nothing for her to do until she got out of here.

Her thoughts raced as a timeless eon passed her by.

She thought of Dipper, waiting outside, no doubt scared to death. 

She thought of her parents, Mom wanted her and Pacifica to come over for Dinner next friday, she had to remember to make that. 

She spared a thought for Grunkle Stan and Ford, Last year only Stan came for Hanukkah and Christmas because Ford was in the Sierra Nevada. He’d been looking for a yeti, if memory served. She’d better make sure they both showed up this year.

But mostly she thought of Pacifica. 

Her girlfriend, someone who she truly thought to be her Soul mate. She had the ring carefully hidden in one of her sweaters to prove it. 

She was planning on doing it this summer, on the anniversary of them officially becoming friends. She had the whole day planned out. Dinner at one of the cute themed Diners Pacifica had grown a taste for, walk through the park and buy her ice cream. And then She would sing to her, serenading in that silly way that always got Pacifica flustered.

And then the ring. 

Maybe a little less flashy than she’d normally like… but that was primarily because she begged Dipper to help her arrange the flashiest engagement party known to man. 

She went over the plan at least a hundred times in her head, wondering to herself if she should maybe go for it sooner.

Maybe next month instead of Summer?

Maybe next week?

Maybe when she finally got out of this annoying _box_!

Another undetermined period found her thrashing around in space, desperately trying for something to grab hold of.

And finally, _finally_ she found something.

Just a little foothold, just wide enough to press the flat of her foot against and push with all of her might.

There was a sort of tearing noise. Like flesh being ripped from bone, and then a weird pop and… the smell of chicken wings strangely.

And then she was free.

It was night when she opened her eyes. Her sight had been so adjusted to the white light around her, for a moment she was blind as her pupils dilated to adjust.

She almost cried to feel the grass between her fingers as she lay on the ground. The crisp night air damp and cold in her lungs instead of the dry stale air she’d been forced to deal with when trapped.

The giant cube thing had vanished. The glimmer of the stars her only company beyond the silver moon, full and bright.

Huh, she could have sworn it had only just started waxing last night…

Speaking of being alone….

Where the fresh heck was Dipper?

Did he really ditch her after she’d been swallowed up by a giant cube thing? Oh my god she was going to castrate him!

Angrily, she rifled through her pockets, locating her cellphone. She’d turned it off early in her stay in the White Cube Trap, it hadn’t had a signal or wifi or anything to connect her to the outside world. And she didn’t wanna waste the battery, even playing Sailor Moon Drops to kill time.

Her Phone came to life with a happy little chime, her small army of trinkets and bells jangling from their spot on the key chain hole.

November 28, 2020

It had been February the last she checked. 

Three days after Valentines to be exact.

Almost a year away from when she went in.

What. The. Hell.

Exactly 115 missed calls, an infinite number of missed texts. Mostly from Dipper, Pacifica, and her parents.

Nine months.

She’d been gone nine months.

She felt woozy. 

The last text was just a couple of days ago. The last call Mid June. 

The last voicemail on hers and Dipper’s birthday.

Oh god, she’d missed their birthday.

All other thoughts fled from her mind as she dialed up Dipper’s number.

She had to apologize! If she hadn’t been stuck in that cube thing she’d have been there!

The phone rung for awhile, and she took a moment to silently pray that he hadn’t turned his phone on silent during another All-nigher for his Degree in Criminal Psychology.

Finally, _finally_ he answered.

A rough voice that only vaguely still sounded like her brother barked over the phone.

“Who the fuck are you and how did you get my Sister’s phone?”

“D… Dipper?” A dry, mirthless laugh was her only answer.

“Oh, that’s a good impression, I’ll admit You almost had me whoever you are. But let me just tell you, that this is probably the most sadistic bullshit I’ve ever heard. If you know what’s good for you, Turn this damn phone into the police now, and I won’t track the IP and kick your ass.” It all came out in such a harsh line, Mabel had nearly forgotten for a moment what was going on.

Did she enter some other universe where her brother was a jerk? Why was he talking about her like she was gone and anyone could have her phone?

I mean yeah, Nine months is a long time but…

“Whatever, do what you want, I’m done with all you fucks thinking it’ll be fun to mess with me.”

“Please don’t hang up! You still sing Disco Girl to yourself in the Shower! And you made your own theme song for when you want to look cool!” There was a pause, but thankfully, no dial tone.

“How do you know-”

“When we were twelve we made Soos a birthday party without knowing he hated his birthday and then we fought a time traveler, I think his name was Balndo or something, in Time Gladiator Combat! And we gave the Time Wish to Soos, and he used it to heal us and for Pizza!”

There was a long pause, and then, in a voice so heartbreakingly hopeful She could feel herself tear up.

“Mabel?”

-

When that cube thing took her in, it waited an hour, and then spat a skeleton out.

Dipper thought it had killed her.

Everyone thought she was dead.

They’d had a funeral and headstone and everything.

She had to send Dipper a picture of herself to prove she wasn’t still lying, or worse, possessed or something.

And now he was racing to get her. 

She was biding the time, sitting on the side of the road and scrolling through all the texts she missed and listening to all the voice mails.

There were three dated on her birthday. One from Dipper, one from Grunkle Stan and Ford and one from Pacifica.

Dipper’s was a mass of garbled gibberish through sobs, but she was able to make out a couple of ‘I love you’s and ‘all my fault’s

Grunkle Stan and Ford had done that thing that you do to wish someone a happy birthday over the phone, and sang the birthday song together. Grunkle Stan’s voice faded out halfway and Grunkle Ford’s cracked in random areas. The message ended with Grunkle Stan saying, so heartfelt that Mabel found herself in tears all over again, ‘We miss you sweetie’

Pacifica’s was just a long pause and then ‘I love you’ before hanging up. It was the only voicemail she’d sent, accompanied by a small army of texts.

She almost didn’t want to look at the messages. 

The things… left behind.. from people she loved who’d thought she was dead.

But somehow she found herself scrolling.

Her parents had been the first ones to stop texting. Dad didn’t seem to find the idea very therapeutic, as evidenced by the last message being ‘Texting my dead daughter will do nothing. I love you sweeite, but this isn’t helping’, and Mom was never fond of texting anyway. 

Dipper’s ‘last texts’ were a little more disturbing. 

She could feel nothing but a massive sense of horror as she dug through walls of ‘please come back’s ‘This. Is. Pointless’ and on a few instances that left her blood running cold ‘Why am I still here without you?’

After scrolling through an anthology of her brother’s spiraling sanity she determined that when he finally got here, hopefully still in Trusty Old Rusty (The name she gave his Pickup truck) She’d give him the biggest hug and they’d watch Ducktective reruns.

She’d be lying if she didn’t admit to herself that she was putting off Pacifica’s mountain of texts.

But right about the time she had finally mounted the courage to scroll through her would-be fiancee’s texts she heard the engine in the distance. 

She took a deep breath as she stood, the headlights shining in her face as Dipper got out of Trusty Old Rusty, face pale and outfit disheveled.

He was… scruffy, she supposed was the best word to describe it. His outfit looked thrown on, like he barely had time to actually put clothes on before he was out the door. It looked like he was wearing two different shoes for that matter. 

His trusty cap was still on his head, but was askew, probably from running his hand through his bangs like Dipper always did when he was upset. 

He had the beginning of stubble along his jaw and Mabel noted with a small hum of sympathy that it looked like he’d been crying.

“Dipper.” It felt like it had only been an hour, maybe two tops, but Dipper stared at her like he’d never expected to see her again.

“When we were six. What was the first thing that got me into the supernatural.” He took a step forward, but his shoulders were tense.

She smiled slightly.

“There was a power outage, you thought our new kitten was a ghost.”

Dipper made a face like he’d been punched in the gut and before Mabel knew it her brother was burying his face into her collarbone, sobbing.

-

She’d been at a bit of an impasse for a moment. Would it be cheating Pacifica to stay the night with Dipper? Would it be cheating Dipper to ask to be taken home to Pacifica?

“How has she been doing?”

“Who?” Dipper’s hand curled a little tighter on the steering wheel. The other hand was on the Gear shift, her own resting comfortable on top of it.

“Pacifica.” Dipper huffed out a mirthless laugh.

“Fuck if I know...” Mabel’s gut dropped to her knees.

"What do you...?"

“She acted like nothing was wrong. She still visited every so often for things we all used to go to, she answered every call. She seemed completely normal.” His nails dug into the handle of the wheel “Pissed me off.”

“Dipper…”

“Check your phone! I doubt you had anything from her. God… For someone who acted like she had a personal mission to prove she cared about people, it took her all of three seconds to carry on when her girlfriend fucking died.”

Carry on?

“Does she… is she dating anyone?” Mabel wasn’t entirely sure how she’d feel at the prospect. She supposed if Pacifica thought she was dead… then it would make sense… she should be happy for her…right? Whoever this new girlfriend was… She could probably just accept it and try and move on.

She wondered if the jeweler would give her a refund on the ring.

“Why would I know?”

“Do you know?” Dipper groaned. 

“Not from what little I’ve seen but Mabes, Pacifica was my friend, and I saw her drop you like a hot potato.”

Did she though? Mabel pulled out her cellphone after a moment of thought.

Dipper was always one to see things a little logic heavy, So that tended to make things really black and white for him. But this was nothing if not complicated.

He’d known Pacifica for as long as she had, he knew she wasn’t like that. 

She checked the texts Pacifica had sent her. The last one was dated two days ago.

_‘Working late so I’ll bring home Dinner xoxo’_

What?

_‘Do you wanna watch Avengers or V for Vendetta tonight?’_

_‘I know our landlord might kill me, but I just saw this lil’ guy on the street o^o and Waddles seems to like him! He looks like a Henry to me! :3 ’_ and then a picture of a cute little Puppy curled up next to Waddles.

_‘No go with Henry :( but a little girl at the park fell in love with him so he didn’t go without a home for long :D’_

_‘Your parents stopped by to take Waddles :( They decided their yard would be better for a pig than our dinky apartment’_

_‘Did you hear? Ducktective is getting a reboot next year! Soo excited! <3333’_

And on and on and on

Nine months worth of one sided conversations.

Her blood ran cold as Dipper turned onto the road to take them to his dorm.

“No… go left. Drop me off at the apartment.”

“What? Mabel It’s been Nine. Months. Pacifica has taken over the place! I know you like believing the best in our friends but I’m not leaving you alone with her!”

“Then just give me fifteen minutes.” she squeezed his hand in her own. “Fifteen minutes and you can come in and stay the night with us.”

He looked at her again, brow furrowed.

She tried her best to look innocent, the puppy eyes he was always weak to.

Instead of groaning and grumbling to himself before conceding defeat, like she’d expected, he huffed out a laugh, and looked for the life of her like he was going to cry again.

“God… Never thought I’d see you make that face at me again.” he shook his head and turned left.

-

“Fifteen minutes.” He huffed, hands gripping the steering wheel in a vice.

“Fifteen minutes.” She agreed before leaning over and giving her brother a small kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks Dippin’ Dots.”

“Yeah yeah…. You’re lucky I haven't called Mom and Dad yet.”

“They can smother me all day tomorrow, tonight is for my other half and the love of my life!”

Her hiking boots, still grimy from the adventure both nine months and an hour ago, clattered hard against the asphalt as she trudged out of the parking lot and toward the familiar apartment.

Her keys jangled happily in her grip, but she hoped she didn’t need them.

Pacifica got off work around this time after all.

Nothing really looked like it had changed. 

There was a curious dog peeking through the O’Leary’s flat instead of their surly cat. 

Old Mrs.Gergrich’s bird Tweety chirped his usual hello to her as she ascended the stairs to the second floor.

When she stopped infront of their door, her hand hesitated over the wood.

Nine Months.

She’d been gone nine months. Even if it felt like nine hours.

What if Dipper was wrong and Pacifica’s new girlfriend answered the door? What if someone different entirely answers the door? What if Pacifica moved back in with her parents and didn’t tell anyone? What if she was there but just slammed the door in her face? What if she screamed?

Three sharp knocks filled the air as a shiver crawled up her spine.

It wasn’t late enough for her to be asleep just yet.

There was a call of ‘coming!’ in such a familiar voice that Mabel tried not to collapse in relief.

She was there.

the clack of heels against the tile of their hallway came as such an ease on her ears, especially in the wake of seeing her brother so harsh.

She could really use Pacifica’s calming voice right about now.

The door opened and her breath caught.

Maybe her hair was a little longer than her usual A-line cut, and maybe her eyes were a little darker from one or two nights without sleep, but god…

God, she had never seen anyone more beautiful than Pacifica right after she’d come home from work, dress shirt rumpled and tie half undone.

“Hey there stranger.” Mabel smiled, shyly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

She silently braced for anything. Tears, screaming, a kiss, a door to her face, anything.

Pacifica looked her up and down, and the confused expression faded to, an almost dazed neutral.

“Right… Tea. Long day…” She opened the door only a fraction before turning and talking back down the hallway.

What

Of all the things Mabel had expected. That wasn’t one of them.

Quickly, before the door drifted shut again, she slid into the hall and raced after Pacifica.

“Hey!... hey Pacifica! It’s me! Mabel! Don’t you recognize me?”

“Morgan was such a bitch today… christ it was all ‘merge merge merge, eyes on the merge Nehhhrthwest!’ At least there was that gentleman on the bus who gave up his seat.” Pacifica raised a hand up and ran it through her hair as she filled the kettle with her free hand.

“Pacifica?” It was like she wasn’t even processing what was going on…

“Hey Mabel, you’ll never guess what happened on my way home though.” She glanced up at her once, a wry sort of grin playing across her cheeks. 

“I ran into some kid right? And you know, big deal, She’s this chubby little brunette, cute little shirt with ‘spicy’ written on it. So I comment on it and she gets all excited. ‘The Duchess of Austria wore this to a movie premiere!’”

Duchess of…. oh!

“Grenda!” she answered, But Pacifica went along as if she hadn't spoken.

“Looks like Marius and Grenda have been having a good time off in Austria, all I’m saying.”

Though the small story did manage to distract her for a couple of minutes, the fact was that she was still being half ignored by the love of her life. After she'd been gone and thought dead for Nine. Freaking. Months.

“Pacifica… I’ve been gone for…”

“Nine months, eleven days, and twelve hours.” She answered mechanically as the kettle finally started to scream.

“So, the newest season of Heroes Reborn started on Sunday, Hiro’s really come along. Glad to see him and Ando worked things out.” Pacifica continued to ramble as she poured the hot water into two Mugs.

Hers and Mabel’s.

But she wouldn’t look at her beyond one or two idle glances.

She’d been gone nine months… And Pacifica had kept track of it by hour. So why was she acting like it was nothing now that Mabel was back?

She found it really hard not to take that personally.

While she selected a small packet of mint tea for herself, Mabel huffed indignantly when she didn’t also pull out the jasmine for her.

“Pacifica!” Pacifica’s head jolted once, but beyond that, she didn’t look up, or cease her rambling about the newest Marvel Movie.

Now she was starting to get worried. 

Mabel reached out, to put her hand on Pacifica's shoulder to get her attention, but the blonde flinched out of her way the second she got too close.

“No, I’m not dealing with that today.”

“Dealing with…?”

A loud banging on the door interrupted her.

“Pacifica! Open up!” Dipper. Of course.

It hadn’t felt like fifteen minutes.

Pacifica sighed and put her mug down, seconds away from taking the first tentative sips of her tea.

“Calm down Dipper! I’m coming!”

Almost immediately she was ignored.

“Come on, it’s just Dipper. He’s not gonna bite or something…”

Nothing.

When the door opened, Dipper had his arms crossed and would have almost looked menacing if her brother was anything but stocky and short.

“Fifteen Minutes are up Mabel. Am I taking you back to my dorm or what?” She was about to answer Dipper, that she needed a little more time, but couldn't find her voice.

For a moment there was only silence.

Pacifica stood in the doorway, her shoulders beginning to tremble as she slowly turned to glance at Mabel, still standing in the hallway.

She looked so pale in the dim hall light, Eyes wide and dilated in unbridled fear.

“Pa.. Pacifica…?” Mabel took a step toward the blonde, whom almost immediately snapped her gaze back to Dipper.

“She’s… she’s right behind me…” Her voice was weak, warbling and tinny in the air.

Slowly, Dipper’s brow started to furrow. 

“Yes… She is…?” Her brother’s arms unfolded, he glanced once to her and shot her a look.

He was just as confused as she was.

“You…Dipper, You can see her too?”

Pacifica’s legs gave out under her, she collapsed in the doorway.

Mabel was there in an instant.

-

By the time they’d moved from the doorway, Dipper had long since stepped over them and gone to make everyone some food.

Pacifica was still sobbing, her shoulders heaving and hands shaking as her face remained firmly burrowed into Mabel’s shoulder. 

Mabel had joined her very early in, but she was able to get her girlfriend to stand and shakily walk to the couch.

The couch was loaded with three young adults, two sobbing and one vaguely exasperated but mostly sympathetic.

They didn’t move from the couch all night, Dipper had even jokingly claimed that he’d take their bed if they didn’t haul ass.

And proceeded to take their bed once they started kissing.

“I found the ring.” Pacifica whispered in a small moment between kisses. “I was just tidying up and I found it.”

“What did you think?” Mabel huffed, fingers twining themselves in her hair.

“You showed up and got down on a knee.” Her gut tightened. 

A fake Mabel, had been following Pacifica around. Everywhere, like a ghost. And instead of going to someone else about it and maybe gotten some help, she decided to just let it happen. 

She hadn't known Mabel was real until Dipper spoke to her directly.

“How long ago did all of that start?”

“About the first month in.” Pacifica started to gently pepper Mabel’s neck with kisses, light and ghostly.

“What did you tell Phantom me?”

“Hm?” The blonde's mouth stopped around the center of Mabel's throat, ear pressed against her pulse.

“When Phantom me came when you found the ring, what did you tell her?” Pacifica held her hand up, high enough for Mabel to see.

There sat her ring. A beautiful cut heart of Opal. She would have used a diamond, but Pacifica had long since grown distasteful of the gem.

“What do you think.”

“Give it back.”

Pacifica’s head darted up so quickly that she nearly headbutted Mabel in the jaw.

“Huh?” That one tiny phrase, a single syllable, and her girlfriend was able to put so much confusion and sadness into it.

“I said give it back! Come on Paz! I didn’t get to ask you myself! I had a whole plan! It had walks in the park and ice cream and diners!”

Paz stared at her for a moment, blinking in disbelief, before snorting once with laughter and leaning in close.

“First thing in the morning.”

Mabel smiled into the kiss.

First thing in the morning.

When they parted Pacifica bit back a yawn.

“You should sleep.”

She shook her head. 

“I’ll be fine. I’m not done kissing.”

“Paz.”

“...If I fall asleep, you won’t disappear on me?”

Every time she thought her heart was done breaking it just had to crack a little more.

“Of course not.” She shifted them a bit, so Pacifica was laying on top of her on the couch. “Here. So you can be sure.”

Pacifica paused for a long moment before resting her head on Mabel’s chest.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“So you keep telling me, my lovely fiancee. Sweet dreams, I love you.”

“I love you too… So… so much.” Pacifica nuzzled her once.

Mabel simply watched her, as slowly, but surely, her breaths evened out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? It can't all be happiness, superheroes, and rockstars. I'm the girl that's writing a freaking Madoka Magica AU of course there'll be sads.  
> It just occurred to me this is more Pines Twins than Mabifica, but oh well.


	5. Ursa Pines, daughter of Mabel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dumhaz) “im on the bus and my 2-year-old won’t stop crying, except you just smiled at them and they did”

Mabel was eternally thankful for her family.

When she’d left Joshua’s cheating ass, her bags packed and her heart too full of rage to be broken, her family immediately was there for her.

Her father had made sure Joshua would never bug her again, fixed up her old room, everything. 

Her mother held her when she’d wrapped white knuckles around a pregnancy test and started to sob when she saw the dark red parallel lines that read a positive.

Grunkle Ford had to talk Grunkle Stan down from hunting Joshua himself and possibly killing him when he’d found out.

There was no shame in getting rid of the child, abortion or adoption were both options, her parents assured her that she shouldn’t have to carry that man’s child if she didn’t want to.

But Mabel had always wanted to be a mommy.

And she did have a good job with a design company, so it’s not like she couldn’t support a child.

Dipper had been so kind to her while she was carrying the baby. To think all the bullies she’d threatened when they were children… And now he’d ended up returning the favor to middle aged soccer moms who’d made snide comments about ‘dumb hussies who don’t know how to close her legs’

He’d driven through the night from the Bay Area all the way back to Piedmont when he heard she was going into labor.

Mabel used to have a long line of children’s names selected for her future children, but when the Doctor handed her the squirmy little girl, informed her happily that she was a healthy five pounds and nine ounces, Mabel decided that ‘Miriam’, ‘Guinevere’, or ‘Vasilissa’, the fairytale names she’d always held in her decisions, couldn’t capture this little sparkling star.

Dipper had been the first to hold Ursa after her.

He’s cried when she told him her name.

Grunkle Stan had been grinning so hard, claimed he didn’t think he’d live to see another generation of Pines’, and even Grunkle Ford looked a little emotional.

She was lucky to have her support system, even when she moved to Berkley for her job and price range, Dipper was only a fifteen minute drive from his loft in San Francisco where he was still getting his filmmakers degree.

The first few months were a struggle in her new flat, with her infant daughter woken not only by hunger, but by the rumble of traffic.

She’d thought that once Ursa had started sleeping through the whole night that she’d be in the clear for a little bit.

But they weren’t called the Terrible Two’s for nothing.

She’d just picked Ursa up from daycare after her shift at the design studio she’d been transferred to, and her legs ached too much from running around all day to walk her and her baby home.

So she’d decided to use the bus pass Dipper had insisted on paying for when he’d last come over to visit. 

Ursa did not like potholes.

She shot an apologetic look to all the people in the Bus who turned to glare over their shoulders at her. 

Ursa Just would. Not. Stop. 

She was just about to consider getting off at the next stop and walking the rest of the way home, to hopefully soothe her fussy child, when a woman moved down the mouth of the bus. 

She carried herself with surprising poise despite the jerky nature of the transit system. Blonde hair cut into a neat A line, that still, somehow, was able to swish alongside her dress coat.

Wait… wasn’t that one of hers? Or rather, something she and the other members of her design team worked on.

Anyway, the woman walked down the Bus aisle, completely deaf to the screaming infant getting closer and closer. 

She sat just a seat away from Mabel, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she gazed dazedly out the window.

Ursa let out another wail and Mabel took a deep breath to calm herself.

She shifted her grip on her daughter so she was facing outwards to the rest of the bus, maybe giving her little Ursa bear a better view may alleviate the spooked screams that case out with every jolt.

No go. 

The blond woman looked over at them, more curious than annoyed. The woman’s bright green eyes flickered over Ursa, who hadn’t stopped her wiling, but had turned to the stranger, despite her scarlet face.

“What’s so terrible little one?” The woman asked with a smile, her voice was gentle and surprisingly kind, despite her seemingly cold exterior.

Almost immediately, Ursa stopped.

Her face and cheeks were still bright red from the exertion of crying for so long, But her watery eyes widened and the angry flapping of her arms stopped.

What.

Mabel’s eyes must have been as wide as Dinner plates because suddenly the blonde woman turned Sheepish. 

“Sorry, Didn’t mean to overstep myself.”

“No No… just… how did you…?” The bus ran over another pothole, but beyond a distressed whine Ursa didn’t react much.

“I just really like kids… Oh, sorry, I’m Pacifica.” She nodded to Mabel, who, a little dumbly, nodded back.

Ursa squealed happily and lifted her arms to make grabby hands at Pacifica. Almost immediately Pacifica smiled back down at Ursa.

“And what’s her name?”

“Ursa, named after her uncle.”


	6. Reset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Paintdrips) “We’re stuck in a time loop and you’re the only other person who seems aware of it how do we fix this”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Long time no update, things have been a little hectic at home lately and Finals are a thing, so... Anyway, hope you enjoy!
> 
> **Chapter Warnings: Multiple Major character deaths, some descriptive others vague.**

August 24th.

A Friday.

Exactly one week before their birthday. 

She woke up with Waddles snuffling into her hair, leaving a thin trail of piggy slobber over her ear.

She’d woken Dipper by hanging over his bed with a lovely call of nostalgia, Mister Upsidedownington.

She made a big deal about their Lucky 13th, the party that was going to go on, how excited they both were to face high school.

Right after they’d gotten dressed for the day it was like everything had gone downhill.

Everything had gone wrong, the day ending with Dipper accepting an apprenticeship offered by their Grunkle Ford. Dipper was going to stay in Gravity Falls, forever, leave her behind like a toy he’d outgrown and chase Kelpies instead.

He was leaving her alone, to face growing up in Piedmont without him. She’d heard horror stories today, she’d been told her friends couldn’t be there to see her off, she was more than a little emotionally frayed.

She’d run into the forest in tears, not sparing a moment to make sure she was taking her backpack and not mixing it up with Dipper’s.

The twilight sun filtered through the trees strangely as she kept running. She ran and ran and ran until her legs felt like they’d fall off. 

She’d tripped over a badly placed stone and fallen from a small cliff. Not as big as say, the floating cliffs with the train tracks in them, but a big enough.

She saw what looked like a sharp outcropping of rocks just a few feet below.

And woke up with Waddles snuffling into her hair.

She’d brushed it off as a bad dream and decided to pounce on Dipper like an excited cat to wake him up. 

The plans were the same, the party, Grenda and Candy being out of town, Wendy’s high school horror story...it didn’t sit right with her. So she asked Dipper over the Walkie Talkie if she could find out where he and Great Uncle Ford were to join them.

Today was just a bad day for party planning, that’s all. 

Ford talked over Dipper before he could tell her anything, said it was top secret information. 

Mabel was miffed, but smiled a bit when Dipper gave her a hint. Biggest hill in town huh?

It took her a little bit to find, but not very long at all to take note of the cliffs looking like one of Dipper’s flying saucer stencils and the ground beneath her feeling too solid to just be topsoil and dirt. 

So there she waited, the thin layer of grass did little to muffle the clanging beneath her feet until what looked like a giant pod shot out of the hidden spaceship, a tiny brown speck on the side of it.

Mabel shrieked her brother’s name and whipped out her grappling hook the second the pod got close enough. The trusty hook lodged into the ship and pulled her along. As the Pulley system reeled her in closer to the front of the ship she could barely make out what looked like Grunkle Ford inside, with Dipper still viciously clinging to the hull.

She called out for Dipper again, and he looked behind himself to see her. He called out for her and looked so scared to see her there.

The ship made a hard left and Mabel’s grip slipped. She flew for a moment before she started to fall, she couldn't hear Dipper call her name over the roar of the wind.

Her eyes snapped open before Waddles had even started to sniff her hair.

This was getting weird.

This went on again, Mabel decides not to plan for the party at all today. Instead she follows Dipper after Stanford shouts about lighting his face on fire and asks to come with them.

Grunkle Ford doesn’t look like he wants her to come along, but after Dipper agrees excitedly he gives in.

She aims her grappling hook at the pod on a charging path for her brother, her heart is racing in her chest as it takes out a massive laser gun.

She’s terrified, but she holds her ground.

“If you want my brother or my Grunkle you’ll need to pry them away from my smoking dead body!” 

She remembers a flash of light and an electrical current running up her arms, so powerful it felt like her bones were starting to melt.

She heard Grunkle Ford call out her name, she heard Dipper scream.

She’s awake before the sun has even risen.

She marches downstairs, not even bothering to wake Dipper at all and finds Grunkle Ford. 

She demands answers about what was going on, why she’s been repeating the same day over and over again.

He doesn’t believe her, pats her head and informs her that Grunkle Stan is making breakfast in the other room. 

She spends this day eavesdropping, silently following behind Ford and Dipper, just barely out of sight. She listens and stays silent. Learns about the Rift, about the alien glue, about what Bill wanted with it.

This time she retreats into the forest after Dipper and Ford shoot into the sky in the tiny pod.

She ran into a Dryad.

Her legs were far too short to escape his roots pulling around her little body.

Next time she shakes Dipper awake and tells him everything, he doesn’t believe her at first, but she tells him what Ford would be telling him about the Rift and the ‘Oddpocalypse’ and that was enough to convince him.

They check out the time travel tape, nothing. They check the Journals for any kind of spells, nothing. Dipper suggests that maybe she’s just supposed to tell everyone, not just him or not just Stanford. That didn't sit right with Mabel, but she was willing to stock that as a 'plan B'

There’s no time to do anything about it though, as Dipper still instinctively rushes to help Ford when he calls out for him; her brother, ever so noble.

He asks Mabel before they leave if maybe the cracks in the Rift are what are causing this, if she dies (and clearly shudders when he says this) and restarts it before they ever seal up the cracks maybe that’s why the day keeps repeating.

She shrugs, it’s the only real idea between them, so she promises to sit tight in the shack while Dipper and Ford grab the alien glue.

The sun sets, a bruised and bloody Stanford trudges back to the shack alone.

A tiny broken body lying motionless in his arms.

Grunkle Stan was screaming at Ford, he was in tears; for all of his gruff demeanor Grunkle Stan had such a big heart that was far too prone to bleeding. Grunkle Ford was silently taking the verbal assault, only mumbling things that sounded like ‘I know’ every so often; he looked like he used up all his tears long before he even met her and Dipper. 

Neither of them notice Mabel kiss Dipper on his forehead, right over his birthmark, and whisper that she’ll make this right. She grimaced when her mouth came away with the vague coppery taste of blood, but she refused to recoil.

Neither of them notice her leave to the kitchen and come back in with a large stainless steel knife.

The day only resets when she dies. If she dies then Dipper will wake up this morning again and he’ll be okay.

It felt like her chest was on fire, but the tips of her fingers were ice cold. She remembers reading once in a first aid kit, never pull what is inside you out, you’ll just bleed even more, and struggles with her rapidly numbing arms to force the knife from her chest.

Grunkle Stan finally glances over once, probably at the thin whimper she let out and recoils, shouting her name as she slumps over Dipper.

She’s delirious as she’s pulled upright, Stan’s crying even harder now, she could see Ford shakily dialing a number into the phone, face pale, probably calling an ambulance.

She could fix it. She could fix it. She could fix it.

She just had to fall asleep.

Bleeding to death as it turns out, wasn’t very fun.

The closest thing to a good ending she’d gotten was the first time, so she glued googly eyes to her chin and decided to do that again, hope that everyone would be okay.

That Dipper would be okay.

As though Losing Dipper had been some sort of marker, now more people than her were dying by the end of the day. Ford was killed by the Space pod, then once it crashed into the Shack and they couldn't find Grunkle Stan.

A car accident killed her and Soos together on their way to the high school.

She told everyone a hundred times, Stan laughs awkwardly and makes a joke about how it’s too bad it isn’t a lotto night before being just a little more careful around her, she can never tell him that she can only restart the day if she dies, she knew if she did he’d freak out. 

Ford wouldn’t believe her until she told him about the Rift and the alien glue, but then he’d become sure that she’d only found that out through spying in a different timeline (which was true but still) and gets cross with her. Eventually though he always ends up finding the whole thing fascinating. He usually asks her questions about her previous loops and insists she ‘be a big girl’ when being reminded about certain loops makes her tear up. He only wants to help, and he needs to know what happened to help. She usually can't get around to telling him he never finds a way to help.

Dipper would always believe her and help her look for a solution, They’ve yet to find one, and every time she told Dipper first it lead to his death. Sometimes her brother was too protective of her for his own good. 

Soos and Wendy both thought it was cool until she explained how not cool it was.

Time after Time Mabel got more and more desperate, trying a million and one ways to change the events.

Convincing Dipper and Ford to not try to get the alien glue today, Ford goes himself in secret and plummets to his death after his magnet gun short circuits. Dipper’s despondent and his eyes light up with Hope when she tells him she knows how to fix it.

She never wanted to see Dipper crying over her--looking for all the world that all the light in his life was dying as she bled out--ever again. His cries follow her well into the next three timelines.

She tries to be endlessly supporting of Dipper and act like nothing was wrong, even in the face of Ford’s apprenticeship.

The alien glue is apparently combustible, the whole shack went up in flames after a stray spark from one of Ford’s machines hit the edge of the Rift jar.

Burning to death stunk. 

Especially when it was accompanied by what sounded like a certain corn chip jerk laughing in victory.

Once she tried telling only Grenda and Candy, they both were killed that day on their way to the spaceship by a lucky Gremloblin. Mabel thought nothing of tying a rock to her ankle and going for an evening swim.

Drowning wasn’t too bad once you’re over the burning in your lungs.

In different timelines she’d gone to different people, reaching out to anyone who’d ever owed her or she’d befriended.

She was starting to wonder if whoever was talking to her at all was going to be cursed to die no matter what.

So she tried to shut down. To stop trying to stop it, after all, maybe that was what whatever it was that was making these loops wanted. If it wanted her to give up before things started moving again then she may as well oblige.

She still would die at the end of the day, sometimes she'd loose others and sometimes she wouldn't. Once it had simply been getting a glass of milk and something had processed wrong in her gut. Once she fell down the stairs. Once the roof gave in. Sometimes it was Grunkle Stan who fell down the stairs, or Dipper who chocked on breakfast, or Ford who left on a mission and never came back. 

She'd taken to jumping off the roof of the shack. 

She's been trying to keep happy, to act like nothing's wrong... But every time she'd look at her family, her favorite boys in the world, and all she could see was the various ways they'd all died.

They’ve been growing increasingly more worried around her, as though some tiredness that she couldn’t escape was slowly starting to show despite how many times the day has reset.

Dipper was hesitant this time, to go with Stanford to find the Alien Glue, he’d rubbed the back of his neck and reason that Mabel’s having a bit of an off day, maybe he should stick around and party plan with her.

She’d sent him on his way with a smile that couldn’t reach her eyes anymore, wondering idly if he’d be crushed by falling debris, or his magnet gun would be shaken loose from his hand and fall a good seven stories from the alien pod, or shipped off to alien prison or disintegrated in a laser blast.

She decided to try doing nothing again, but not stay in the shack. Mabel changed from her Birthday sweater into her fluffy blue one with clouds on it, and decided to just wander through town.

She let her hands burrow into her pockets as she walked down Gopher Road, fingers twitching over her Grappling hook should anything try to bother her. 

Eventually, the dirt road turned to the cracked pavement in town and she looked around, Wishing she could forget the times the grocery store had been burnt to the ground, or the time Soos’ truck rammed into the Taco restaurant. 

The few members of the town that she was on somewhat amiable terms with noticed the dip in her attitude, Robbie raised an inquisitive brow at her across the street and she silently wished she could forget the sound of his screams when his van spun out of control and sent him and Tambry over the cliffside

She dodged Grenda and Candy as they walked through the street, clasping a shaking hand over her mouth as she bit back horrified sobs, remembering the last time she’d gone to them.

Eventually she was walking idly down the street again, she could see the space pod from the corner of her eye zipping about the sky. 

Mabel noted with a small bit of interest that Pacifica Northwest was leaning idly against a closed down store. 

Funny, she hadn’t run into Pacifica in town before.

Actually… now that she thought about it, she hadn’t run into Pacifica at all. In any of her loops.

She had her head tilted to the sky, if she didn’t notice the sharp look on the other girl’s face Mabel would have thought she was cloud watching.

The Space Pod zipped above town again and Pacifica was following it intently. 

But… Mabel noted, she wasn’t interested, or confused, or even shocked, she was bored. Like she’d seen this a million times before.

...Maybe?

“Hey Pacifica.” Pacifica’s gaze snapped from the sky over at her. 

“Mabel? Haven’t seen you in town before…” Her eyes widened and she sheepishly covered her mouth with her hand, as though shocked at her slip of tongue.

Mabel could feel something heavy lessen on her shoulders. Was that relief? Was that just her desperation, eager to have finally found someone?

“Before? I’ve been in town lots…” Her lips pinched together. “Like the time the grocery store burned down, or Soos and I got into the accident…”

Pacficia’s eyes focused intently on Mabel at that. 

“Excuse me?” Mabel wrung her hands together.

“By the time the day ends, someone dies. Usually me. And then I just wake up and it’s morning again.”

Pacifica’s brow furrowed before her gaze darted down, a weariness beyond her years finally cracked to the surface. Something Mabel could recognize seeing in the mirror after the 30th try or so.

“I thought it was Just me…” Mabel’s arms itched to hug her. 

Well… Mabel Pines wasn’t one to disobey her urges. 

She knew Dipper had hugged Pacifica (or was it that she hugged him?) back during the whole ghost thing, but he probably didn’t appreciate it. Dipper wasn’t very good with hugs.

The way that someone else’s arms can cling like you’re a lifesaver, or wrap around you like a big protective blanket…

Hugs were the best.

Pacifica’s arms latched to her waist stiffly, kind of awkwardly, like she didn’t know how to give a proper hug. 

Mabel ran a hand up and down the blonde’s back, just like her mother would do to her after a long day.

Pacifica leaned her head onto Mabel’s shoulder and gripped her even tighter.

“It’s been what… two months now?” She asked shakily. Mabel counted on her fingers. 

“Almost… yeah. Fifty three tries.” just hearing the number made the weight come back across her shoulders. 

But not as heavy this time, this time she wasn’t alone.

“And you said… what.. you dying is what keeps making things reset?” Pacifica still didn’t move from her position against Mabel. So she could only feel her nod.

“How does it work for you though?”

“Midnight strikes and the date stays the same, the sun goes up and everyone else forgets.”

This time she thinks she may have figured it out.

Mabel brings Pacifica home with her, insists that she stay the night to hopefully keep things from going bad again. 

Pacifica grumbles a bit but doesn’t really complain much about their ramshackle house.

Grunkle Ford and Dipper come back triumphantly, and Dipper’s nervously rubbing at his arm about something. The apprenticeship.

It’s a conversation she’s had every time Dipper and Ford make it back from Alien Ship without her. But this time, she doesn’t fake a smile, Pacifica would have seen that a mile away.

She reminds Dipper that Mom and Dad won’t exactly be keen on the idea of Dipper dropping out of school, Even if Stanford has a buttload of PhDs.

Pacifica may or may not have convinced her to call their parents after she'd told her what the first loop had been for her, asking stem specifically about it. 

Dipper’s disappointed but he concedes that Mabel’s right and leaves to go down to the basement and tell Grunkle Ford he can’t take the apprenticeship. 

She should feel bad about that but she wasn’t the only one trying to live a fantasy.

Dipper was just lucky that his hadn’t turned into a nightmare.

She and Pacifica stayed up all night. Leaned over Pacifica’s laptop and special noise cancelling headphones on their heads. They listened to music and talked to each other by typing on the word processor.

Nobody died. Nobody they knew at least.

They watched with bated breath as 11:59 turned over to 12:00

August 24th

A Friday

Pacifica let out a thin groan and flopped back onto Mabel’s bed. Mabel sighed. 

Another go.

Dipper shrieked in surprise when he woke up a couple of hours later, unprepared to see Pacifica Northwest in their bedroom. 

Mabel spun a lie about a late night adventure and forest fairies.

At least Dipper believed her.

Dipper went off with Grunkle Ford to find the Alien Glue

She and Pacifica stayed at the shack. 

Just to take some time off. Unless something bad happened in this loop, it wasn't a crime to just take a couple of loops to rest. 

It’s not like any actual time was passing.

Pacifica had so many movies on her laptop to pick from. And Mabel convinced Grunkle Stan that she was giving a Viking send off to her 12 year old days before the party planning began tomorrow.

They watched a lot of movies that time around. 

Now for most time loops she’d immediately leave for Northwest Mansion, only sometimes telling anyone where she’d be going. She normally just implies she’s going off with Candy and Grenda.

Pacifica didn’t want to chance accidentally falling asleep and Dipper waking up with her in their room again.

They became startlingly good stabilizers for each other, Mabel would calm Pacifica down if she started getting too frustrated with their predicament, and in turn Pacifica would stop Mabel from getting lost in her own head.

Mabel had started sleeping again for the first time in what felt like eons. 

Of course things hadn’t suddenly turned good just because they found each other, timelines still went wonky, Dipper or Stanford may not come home, Northwest Manor might burn to the ground with Pacifica’s parents still inside. 

Mabel’s sparkly pink nail polish, chipped and cracked from the coat she’d put on on a Thursday that felt like another lifetime ago, clashed horribly against the perfectly done shimmery purple nailpolish Pacifica boasted.

But something about Pacifica’s hand tight in her own just felt right. 

It still felt right even as Pacifica screamed beside her and gripped her hand even tighter as they plunged down the cliffside, restarting the day as Mabel normally did.

Pacifica was still shaken from the fall as Mabel had dropped by the Mansion, so she brought them both back to the Shack to watch old movies on VHS.

Something stirred in her gut when the door to the shack banged open, revealing a beaten up Dipper, Soos wearing a dark cloak over his clothes, and Wendy with a headband made from the sleeve of her Flannel shirt. 

Pacifica gripped her hand a little tighter.

“I think something’s finally changed in our favor.” She whispered to her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's confused, this was supposed to be an alternate take on what was in Mabel's Bubble (with the addition of Pacifica, Idk, maybe Bill thought she needed a playmate and snagged the other kid on the Cipher Wheel that would be fooled by the world he made)


	7. Viola and Trumpet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Karlcat)We both showed up to practice/the concert really early and it’s just the two of us, and I got really bored and started playing Star Wars and then you started playing it as well, and now we’re competing to see who can play the most references and I am determined to win’

Her mother had carefully plated her hair into a neat french braid. This was her first concert in Highschool, and Mabel wanted it to go as well as she could.

She was First Chair Viola and she couldn't let the other orchestra player down.

She would have gone out for Violin back in elementary school, but the high tones made Dipper’s ears hurt, so she picked the next best option. Looking back, she as pretty glad she’d picked the more subtle instrument. Violinists were some of the snootiest kids she’d ever met in Orchestra, while most of the other Violists were quirky enough to easily befriend. Another violist, as well as her second Chair, Grenda, and a Bass player Candy, were two of her best friends actually.

They’d been talking tonight up since the date for the concert had been announced. They were all so excited to play together.

Tonight was a special concert in more ways than one. It wasn’t just her first concert in High School, but it was also supposed to be a joint concert with the Jazz Band. Some sort of tradition to break in the school year apparently.

Anyway, dad didn’t get home with the car until a lot later than Last Rehearsals started up, so all she’d really been able to do that day after school once she’d gotten home was change and let her mother do her hair before she’d saddled up onto her bicycle and pedaled back to the performance hall.

But, she supposed she could have taken more time to maybe watch some reruns of Adventure Time, or play a couple of rounds of Super Smash Brothers with Dipper before she headed out. Because now she was very much alone in the room with her Viola, idly playing warmups to ease the boredom.

She’d stood for a moment just to get some water from the fountain in the little practice room, wondering idly if she should play through the entire selection of the concert just to have something to do.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a trumpet in the distance. The heavy brass tones of the instrument played out a couple of it’s own warmups, but very quickly. Mabel was more curious than anything else as she wandered down the hall to the performance room the Jazz Band were supposed to be practicing in.

Her Viola and bow were still held loosely in her hand as she slowly approached the window in the top half of the door.

Much like the Orchestra practice room, the person inside the Band practice room was all alone. 

She had long blonde hair coiled all tightly into ringlets and wearing the Jazz band uniform, the white shirt, black pants and dark blue bowtie and suspenders. She’d just paused after a simple lowest-to-highest scale to tilt her trumpet forward and press a slot for a bunch of spit to dribble out.

Mabel held back sticking her tongue out. She knew wind instruments, Brass or not, ended up coagulating a lot of spit, of course they needed to be ‘drained’ every so often. Besides, Dipper would call her a hypocrite for reviling at someone else’s less glamorous instrument hazards while her fingers were forever callused and grody from string training. 

Quietly, trying not to disturb the other girl, Mabel eased the door open, the urge for companionship before the other orchestra or band players came was too great to ignore.

The blonde girl looked up at her from where she was sat on the ground, legs crossed, the main body of her trumpet resting on her knee, slidey thing hooked over an ankle, and polishing her mouthpiece. 

Mabel was startled for a moment at how positively _Green_ the girl’s eyes were. That perfectly executed smokey eye makeup just enough to make them look even brighter.

“Uhm hi… I’m Mabel.” She waved, smiling just a bit as she held up her Viola. “Orchestra.”

The blonde girl nodded once in acknowledgement before going back to cleaning her trumpet. 

She didn’t say anything else. Normally, Mabel would take this as her cue to bait the other girl into talking to her. But, hey, maybe it was pre-concert jitters combined with not being familiar with the band’s practice room, but something told her to stop talking. 

But in the end, she wasn’t Dipper, she couldn’t just let a vaguely awkward silence be. So, just around the time the Blonde girl looked like she was finishing up with cleaning her instrument, she held her Viola under her chin.

Carefully, she started playing a couple of notes, wondering only briefly what she should play before an idea formed in her head.

The Blonde Girl raised a quizzical brow at her when she started playing the tune. Maybe the Viola part of the song wasn’t as easily recognizable, but once it got to the crest.

The other girl’s eyes widened when the familiar tune of the Star Wars opening punctuated the air. Mabel couldn't fight down the wide grin that blossomed onto her face at that. Talk about an ice breaker, huh?

then, all of a sudden, the surprised look on the other girl’s face drifted into a challenging grin. Quicker than Mabel could really keep track of, the blonde girl had reassembled her Trumpet and held the mouthpiece to her lips.

A Trumpet and a Viola. Not exactly the most dynamic two instruments to ever be put together. But they weren’t some sort of cacophonous wreck like they could have been. Mabel noted with a bit of amusement that the Blonde girl doesn’t puff her cheeks up when she plays unless she forgets a note. 

With a flourish of her bow the piece ended. Maybe a little too soon for Mabel’s tastes, but hopefully that was enough to break the ice. 

The Blonde trumpet player didn’t stop after the final bars though, she shifted her grip on her instrument just a little bit and started playing something else.

Mabel immediately recognized it as the Cantina Song. 

She countered with the Darth Vader march, or... wait... wasn't it called the Imperial March? She kept getting that wrong... 

The Blonde girl’s note went sour when Mabel started playing her response, dropping her trumpet to glare at her as she pulled a small stick of chapstick from her bag and applied it before holding her trumpet back up to her lips.

Was… was that?

She was playing Megalovania now. Jeez, from Star Wars to Undertale in three seconds flat.

She heard a cheer behind them, and turned to see some clarinet player in the Jazz band uniform Clapping along to the beat, eyes trained perfectly onto the blonde girl.

Well, Mabel Pines wasn’t one to back down from such a challenge. Papyrus was her favorite character, so she took a breath and started playing what she could remember of Bonetrousle.

The door between the band and orchestra rooms opened and Mabel almost stumbled off of beat when she heard Grenda shout her name excitedly. The blonde girl hopped to her feet so she and Mabel could stand across from each other properly.

She countered Mabel with Spear of Justice, and they were gathering an audience. The other kids in band and orchestra were coming, now all at once. Mabel could even hear a couple of kids chanting ‘battle of the bands’ 

Mabel thought for a moment and started to play Hopes and Dreams. She could hear Candy from where the other orchestra kids were gathered, cheering for Mabel to never give in. 

They were going back at forth for awhile, the band kids cheering whenever the blonde girl was playing and the orchestra kids cheering whenever Mabel played. The Firefly Theme, the Buffy theme, Dearly Beloved, Simple and Clean, Sanctuary, Cloud’s theme, Legend of Zelda, Mario, Star trek. Nobody interrupted them, nobody wanted to. 

Nobody dared to.

The blonde girl stopped for a moment after Mabel finished up the Misty Mountains song. She tapped erratically on the buttons along her trumpet, playing the song back in her head before she held the mouthpiece to her lips again.

Makenai.

Mabel loved Sailor Moon….

Mabel smiled to herself before starting on Moonlight Densetu. It was her favorite song, and if she didn't need to concentrate on the strings she would have been singing along.

And… surprisingly, instead of playing something like Sailor War or Sailor Team No Theme, the Blonde girl joined in.

As if playing together had set something off, everyone who knew the song started joining in. 

First was a saxophone player, he was big and stocky, not someone you’d expect to know such a show. Then was Grenda, her Viola chorusing with Mabel’s and almost immediately Candy’s bass joined in. 

Then was a flute player with long dark hair held up in a tight bun. 

A clarinet player, tall and lanky with acne scarred cheeks and hair carefully combed back. 

A Trombone player and a Cellist sitting beside each other on the uncomfortable plastic chairs. 

Nobody else joined in, nobody else knew the song. 

But everyone cheered at the end. 

The Blonde girl’s cheeks were scarlet despite the foundations she’d carefully applied to keep herself from shining against the spotlights. 

“Pacifcia.” She nodded at Mabel. She huffed for breath a little bit, and carefully reapplied her chapstick, but she was smiling wide.

Mabel couldn’t help but return it. 

“Nice to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sibling thought it would be hilarious if Pacifica played an instrument that was _so not_ the usual for an heiress to play. So I came up with the headcanon that her parents tried to teach her piano when she was five but she hated it and was able to swindle a bargain that, as long as she was playing an instrument, she was allowed to pick which one. It was the first minor rebellion she'd ever successfully committed on her parents by insisting on the Trumpet.
> 
> Edit: as someone kindly pointed out, I did get the Imperial March misnamed, and I fixed it.


	8. Love Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (atimelordswife)I want a soulmate AU where, from the moment you’re born, you have the sound of your soulmate singing their favorite song echoing through your head.

Her mother had only asked her once, when she was very very young, what she could hear when she closed her eyes. Even as a toddler she was eager to please and shut her eyes to loudly sing along to the lullaby she could hear.

The voice was high and kinda nasally, just like her own, the voice was maybe her age. But she repeated the song word for word.  It made her smile, and kind of reminded her of her own favorite song to sing along to, her music box melody. 

Her mother had combed her black hair back with a hand and smiled at her in a gentle way that she’d never see on her again.

“It seems like your Heartsong is the same age as you hm, Pacifica sweetie?”

That was the first and last time her mother asked her about her Heartsong, The memory was hazy, but she could remember that her mother had still looked truly young back then, smiles came easier to her still soft face. The novelty of having a child hadn’t quite died in her mother’s heart just yet.

But time went on, Her father grew less tolerant of her childish antics and created The Bell, and her mother grew more and more fond of the needles full of plastic enhancement and the bottles of gas station wines that did the job quicker than the fruity expensive kinds, that she'd only take out when she thought she was alone.

At the very least, Pacifica still had her Heartsong. 

Her Heartsong was kind of shrill, and sometimes maybe a little too sharp as the melody of some song heard from a cartoon bounced around Pacifica’s head. Still, poor quality aside, her voice was soothing. 

Yes, 'her', Sure voices tend to sound the same before pueberty, but she hoped it was a girl. Boys were gross, and she was pretty sure she'd never stop thinking that.

And the fact of the matter was, she didn't really care. She knew what her parents thought of that sort of thing, and she knew what most people thought of it, so she kept that part of the story to herself.

But she knew, and she didn't care. It was destiny wasn't it? Maybe her parents wouldn't be too mad when they found out. Maybe they'd even change their tune a little bit.

God, she couldn't even lie to herself about it. Even if her parents believed her about whoever it was being her Heartsong it would be a fight to let them stay together.

By now at least, her Heartsong had gotten a little bit better at singing, not much, she was still charmingly off-key a lot of the time, but when Pacifica closed her eyes she could feel the raw passion in her voice, so it was considerably more enjoyable.

That, and it wasn't the Care Bears theme song anymore, so that was a plus.

The downside of course, was that her Heartsong was a fan of literally the most bubblegum pop songs that Pacifica had ever heard.

Well, she'd have to give Her Heartsong credit, not ALL bubblegum pop songs are that bad, She did like a couple of singers on their own, but when you've heard one song about a ~Tragic romance between a boy and a girl, you tend to have heard them all.

And really, everyone else around her was listening to Bubblegum pop. There was only so much of the same song in different words and melodies one person could take. 

So, Pacifica spent the majority of the fourth grade aggressively listening to 'boy' music, rock and roll and stuff. She was still acting the same of course, but whenever someone would curiously point as her iPod and ask her what she was listening to, she got a lot more confused looks when she'd answer then she used to get.

Her Classmates were all so dazzled by her strange taste, they insisted she was such a trendsetter. 

In fifth grade there was a mini uprising in her private school involving girls loudly listening to Rock and Roll music in the dorms and air guitar-ing when the teachers insisted they act like 'proper ladies'. Proper ladies can listen to Bubblegum Pop and Rock and roll if they want to.

At the very least nobody wanted to rat her out for being the one to 'start' this little uprising.

Needless to say, all music beyond classical got banned from campus.

She was in the sixth grade when something truly amazing happened.

She'd been humming one of her favorite songs it was song by a band called Panic... something something... She didn't understand some of the allusions, but when she'd sing along to it, she'd pretend she did.

Pacifica sighed to herself, wondering idly if her Heartsong was so interested in Lady Gaga out of complete spite, just like she was. 

There were two other girls in her dorm, the only other girls from Gravity Falls actually, Avery and Waverly. 

Pacifica tired not to mention how their names rhymed, she was sure they already knew that. 

Avery was gone from the room, She needed to get her GPA up or else, so she spent more time in the tutoring program than she or Waverly did.

Waverly was finishing up her homework on her desk at the moment, while Pacifica was zoning, muttering the song by the Panic band.

Waverly's pencil hit the desk with a snap. Starling at the action, Pacifica looked over to her friend.

“Uhm....? Should I stop?” She found herself asking. Normally she would retreat upon her 'proper girl' training and either quiet immediately, or keep humming, silently telling Waverly to just deal. But hey, she was the one who asked to be in a dorm with others, her parents could have sprung for her to have a solo room, but she knew she wouldn't have a single damn friend otherwise.

“Pacifica?” Waverly asked, shoulders beginning to tremble. “Why do you like Rock music so much?” She'd gotten the question every so often by a lot of people. Someone like her should only ever listen to classical music and Top 40 hits right? 

“Because the boys are cute.” It was her usual excuse of course. Most people were sure she was lying, they were sure it was because of her Heartsong, and it was, just not in the way they expected. 

“Liar.” Waverly turned around in her seat so she was straddling the thing, glaring at Pacifica. 

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. It's your Heartsong right? They listen to something else, all the time, and so you listen to something entirely different so you don't Overdose on it.”Pacifica rolled over onto her stomach she she could properly look at Waverly.

“...What?” She wanted to ask Waverly how she knew, but she got the feeling she was about to find out anyway.

“It has to be.” Waverly huffed, angrily crossing her arms and staring determinedly down at the ground. “So just admit it....”

She wasn't able to find out what was up with Avery just then, Avery had just finished up her Tutoring session and proceeded to slam open their door and skulk in. 

Avery ended up singing when she hopped in the shower a few hours later, and that was when Pacifica figured it out.

Because frankly, she'd never heard Waverly sing before. Not where Avery could hear her.

She spent the majority of Seventh grade sharing knowing looks at her darker skinned friend whenever Avery would make up some story about who her Heartsong might be. A poet, a writer, an athlete, he must have a sensitive heart to sing with such a delicate voice and to voclalize with such lovely music with pretty much no lyrics.

She'd smiled sympathetically at Waverly, who'd darted her eyes to the ground and subtly hid her newest Yo-Yo Ma CD under her pillow

Seventh grade ended with little fuss, to the point where that summer took her by such surprise she'd nearly been tempted to lock herself away in her room.

She, Avery, and Waverly, were all at some dinky party, hosted at a local tourist trap. The place was normally somewhere she couldn't be caught dead, lest her parents get on her for interacting with commoners, but her penchant for parties was so much that she was able to get away with it this time. 

The DJ, some big hairy guy with buck teeth was super excited about this, this was clearly hi first time DJ-ing, it took him forever just to find one sound effect. 

But he announced that the hardest partier was going to be granted the Party Crown at the end of the night. 

Hah, as if there was even a question.

She'd strolled up to the front, there was some girl standing next to the Mixer, her outfit looked like some horrid clash of 80's and pastel, complete with a giant bow tied up into her hair. And Braces? It was like this girl was Asking to be mocked. 

But then again, Pacifica wasn't _that_ cruel. So she decided instead to insult her name. Because really, who names their kid 'Mabel' in this day and age?

And so the competition began. Avery and Waverly were dancing on either side of her, they knew that she was the one to take the spotlight this time, so they were all too happy to do so. 

Mabel apparently, was zealous enough to stand on her own, so she'd eventually dismissed the girls, and by that she definitely meant she convinced Waverly to finally sing to Avery and get it over with.

They went back and forth for most of the night. Until finally, they had the last contest to decide the Party Queen.

Mabel offered her a hand, insisted that no matter who won, it was a fun night.

Pacifica was tempted to insult her again, give her the condescending voice she always did, but her gut turned a bit and she decided against it. 

“Sure... May the best partier win or something...” she slowly reached out and shook Mabel's hand. Mabel smiled widely at her and that same feeling in her gut gave a light jolt.

She was first up. Of course she was, who would even try to go first against Pacifica Northwest? Then again maybe Mabel was just being Polite.

Ugh, why was she even thinking about this sort of thing?! She was just thinking about how to insult the girl just a second ago! Her hand was still a little tingly from where they'd touched when the DJ (Jorge? Or something?) handed her the microphone.

She decided on a Ballad. Not her usual Genre sure, but her reputation in Gravity Falls was different than her reputation in Boarding School. 

She normally would have kept her gaze to the ceiling, like usual when she sang, but she was already feeling pretty off since she'd made nice with Mabel, so she glanced out into the crowd.

She could see Avery and Waverly at the far side of the room. Waverly looked like she'd been crying, and Avery just looked confused, they weren't paying attention to her, but she let that slide, they were doing things that went far beyond this one party.

Her eyes roamed around the crowd, there were some expressions of awe, one or two excited smiles, maybe even a jealous scowl or two. 

Her eyes settled on Mabel's little posse. The Big one with the lizard and the tiny one with the glasses, they both just looked a little uncomfortable, but they'd heard her sing before, they had to have. 

Mabel...

Well...

Pacifica nearly botched her high note when she took in the look on Mabel's face. 

Her expression was close to the kind of awe she'd seen on a few others in the room, but it was accompanied by something else.

A small smile, no more than the slightest twitch at the corners of her mouth. Her brows pinched together and her eyes refused to turn away from her own now that their gazes had met.

Maybe it was the lights in the room, but she could practically see them glimmer with something...

Something that she couldn't put her finger on. Hope Maybe. 

Pacifica's knees felt weak. After her song, people applauded, but she wasn't really paying attention. She'd handed the microphone back to the DJ and stumbled off the stage. 

Mabel looked like she was about to approach her, but her friends escorted her to the front of the stage on the opposite side of the room. 

No...

No...

It... it couldn't be that easy. 

It couldn't have been right after she'd spent the whole night being so mean to her....

She shooed some kid out of their chair and sat down heavily into it.

When she looked up at the stage, Mabel was staring at her still, Brows slightly furrowed now. The DJ asked her what song she wanted, and seemed to snap her out of some sort of trance. Her hair curled around the nape of her neck, and maybe it was her position slightly above Pacifica, but she thought she might have just seen the angle she was going for with her borderline Tacky outfit.

Mabel took a deep breath, pointed at the DJ, and smiled widely. 

“Soos! Give me the happiest Love story-est song you have!”

The DJ, Soos, Gave her a thumbs up, and Mabel looked back at her now, her eyes seeming to glitter from the lights.

The twang of an acoustic guitar played in the background, starting up a vary familiar top 40 song from 2008. 

Of course she would. It was her favorite after all. It was the same damn song she'd been hearing buzz around in her head for the past three months since Mabel first started really listening to Taylor Swift. Boybands and &ndra had nothing on this song.

She must have known somehow, that it would happen this summer, the lyrics were too close to the truth. 

“We were both young when I first saw you...”

Pacifica wished she'd been that prepared. It would have spared her the humiliation of bursting into tears in public.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon that Pacifica secretly loves rock music but pretends she doesn't because she has an image to maintain: incorporated successfully into a fic.


	9. Guardian Angel (Idea 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Guardian Angel AU, suggested by Bothynusexual_Llama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's ready for Tomorrow? Not me!
> 
> Here have some fluff. 
> 
> TW: Abusive environment

Guardians had an interesting set of rules. When they were assigned a mortal, they had to leave with little words shared between their fellow workers and immediately leave for the human world. They would then find their human as their bearer was giving birth to them. Sitting in the room, wherever it was, they would me one of the first people the child would see when they opened their little eyes for the first time.

They would then spend the rest of the mortal's life by their side, gently guiding them down the right roads and tipping luck in their favor if they could. Their charge would recognize them as their first 'Invisible friend' and they would be called by whatever silly name the child made up for them. But even if their name was the silliest thing in the world, They couldn't tell their charge their true name. It's one of their great taboos. Calling a Guardian by their name can either banish them from the Mortal world for a good few thousand years, or tether them there for same amount of time.

Her last Charge, Mason, had called her Sophie.

He'd died far too young. She was supposed to protect him, to guide him down the right paths, and she'd failed.

They could always be ignored of course, and if there were outside forces there were things that they could not do. Even if it meant saving their charge. But the knowledge that even with her divine power there had been truly nothing she could do... it hurt. It hurt her immortal heart in ways she'd forgotten could hurt at all.

She'd been sitting in her room, small and made of stone, colorful sheets lining the windows and the assigned bed that none of them needed, but used to temper themselves to human behaviors.

“Meira? Mine Sister?” her brother, Diqlah, knocked on the door with little hesitation. Her brother was a nervous sort. He was at his most comfortable when he was not working as a Guardian. Keepng of the Scrolls was far more his talent, so that's where he'd been assigned at some point. So really, when she had a new assignment looming on the horizon Meira was all too happy to visit him in the archive for her new assignment instead of going to her superiors.

“Diqlah? Doth thou bringeth any news? Mine ears can only hope for that of a jovial nature. My dear aching heart can only take so much pain.” They could speak in a more modern form should they choose, but it felt too close to Meira's last charge to bring anything but heartache. The current way of speaking never feels good to speak to fellow Guardians to. It's just a reminder that no matter how excellent their abilities are, they cannot save them from death.

Guardians in Europe generally spoke Latin well into the 14th century.

“Peace Sister, I bringeth jovial news indeed.” Diqlah held a scroll tightly in his hand as he strode into her room. “Thine superior, Etan, hath assigned thee a new charge. He worketh under the assumption that a new charge wilt help thee heal from the misfortune that hath fallen thy past charge.” Meira reeled back at that, a sort of disbelieving curl to her lip as she looked to her brother.

“Thine news be not Jovial Diqlah! Misfortune hath fallen Mason by no hand but mine! Mine duty as a Guardian hath fallen through by no inadequacy but mine own! 'Tis noone's fault that that gent choked on those pills but mine own! I take full responsibility for my failure!” With little warning to prepare her brother, Meira snatched the scroll from his hand to roll open and scan over the document.

Unfortunately, he wasn't lying to her, for whatever end that could have brought.

“There be truth in thine news, Dear brother, I asketh thee, Wherefore hath Etan assigned me a new charge so soon? Doest he beliveth me weak? In needeth of constant action lest I fall prey to the demons of mine own mind?” Diqlah chuckled and placed his hand over hers.

“I doubt that, Meira. Of all his angels, Etan speaks of thee the fondest. Thou art one of his favorites and that gent believes thee capable and stout.” Meira smiled crookedly at her brother at the praise. Diqlah nudged her shoulder with his own before pulling a thinner, smaller scroll from the inside of his tunic.

“I has't searched through the archives, and I has't hath found thy best match. Her name is Pacifica Northwest. The lady was born into prosperity, so you'll mainly beest working with problems of the mind ov'r problems of luck. Thine strongest suit, Sister dearest.” He passed the scroll to her before craning his head to give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Taketh care, Sister dearest. I shall see thou in due time, and feel thine absence.” Meira wrinkled her nose at Diqlah as he stood to leave.

“Thine heart has grown soft with paper work Dear Brother. Ere, thee would sendeth me off with roughousing and promises of retribution after I beat thee.” Diqlah stuck his tongue out at her.

“Thine Mood has lifted, I doth not needeth to be nice to thee any more.” Her chucking followed his retreating form long after he'd left her room.

Meira heaved a deep sigh as she opened the thin scroll. A bright flash of light filled the room, when it fades, Meira was gone from Otherworld.

-

A Cesarean section child. There was nothing wrong with that of course, lots of bearers in this day and age felt they could sustain damage if they had to give their child a natural birth. The bearer in question, a woman with ash brown hair and a stiff pinch to the corners of her mouth that had nothing to do with the pain of contractions, took a deep breath as the screams of the infant rang through the air.

Meira smiled gently at the red skinned infant, tiny little puffs of black hair sticking up at odd angles as she was cleaned off by the doctors. Her face was pinched in distress, as was common of newborns.

Pacifica, apparently was her name.

Meira smiled as she was wrapped up in a blanket and handed to a tall man with hospital scrubs hastily thrown over a business suit.

He looked down at the child, the ghost of a smile over his face as he rocked her gently.

Neither he, nor the mother, had any sort of aura around them that signaled unlucky miasma, nor did they have any Guardians behind them.

Meira had to wonder why a seemingly well adjusted family would need a Guardian for the child.

She supposed she'd find out.

Pacifica squinted her big eyes in the light, the bright blue that most infants share peeking into the light for the first time.

Meira made sure she was right beside her father before Pacifica squinted her eyes shut and began crying all the new.

-

Pacifica was a smart girl. She knew almost immediately that other people couldn't see Meira. But Meira could see and hear her just fine. She'd just float sometimes and move through walls, but other thaan that looked for all intents and purpouses, like a normal human wearing a funny white dress and fluffy white wings.

“Mabel.” She mumbled, looking right at her through her long black bangs, thumb pointedly in her mouth.

“Hm?” Meira looked up from the lock of hair that se was idly braiding as Pacifica had been playing with her blocks.

“Mabel.” Pacifica repeated, gesturing with her free hand toard her. “Mabel.” She insisted again, now picking up a blue block and offering it to her.

“'Mabel'?” That was a name right? “Is that my name?”

“Mabel!” Pacifica held out the block a little further toward her.

'Mabel' smiled and held her hand out. If she focused she could interact with the physical world breifly.

Pacifica placed the block in her hand and gave it a gentle pat before looking at her expectantly.

She smiled and put the block on top of the tower Pacifca had been building.

“That's a nice name. Thank you for picking it out for me.”

“Mabel.” Pacifica nodded decisively before knocking her tower down with her free hand.

-

Mabel Understood why she'd been assigned Pacifica when the girl was six.

It had been a little thing. A Minor altercation at school. Mabel had been trying to build up her young Charge's confidence, and told her to stand up for the people she considered friends. Pacifica had interpreted that as starting a fight with someone for teasing her friend Waverly's hair style.

She'd been sent to the principal's office and Mabel had hovered nearvousely around Pacifica, adding just a little bit of her power to the already purpling bruise on Paciica's cheek from the fight, to try and heal it faster.

Pacifica hadn't been sorry, even as her parents were brought into the matter. She'd told the principal straight out that she'd just been defending her friend. Even though Mabel was dissappointed that her advice had been turned into justifications for violence, she couldn't help but feel the smallest spike of pride at Pacifica being so willing to defend herself.

She'd thought that she'd been sent her so that Pacifica wouldn't drown under the expectations of society, being a young girl whose family is always in the spotlight.

But then... oh then...

None of Mabel's luck bending or gentle persuasion prepared her or Pacifica for what happened when they got home.

When Preston Northwest's hand gripped his daughter's wrist so tightly, Mabel was terrified that he'd leave bruises. It was quick. A shout about how she'd be disgracing the family name, shoving her to the ground with a force that nearly sent her tiny body flying, Pacfica burst into tears.

Mabel had been there first. She shushed her charge and wrapped her wings around her tiny form.

She funneled as much power as she could into a calming miasma around the room.

The tap of heels joined Pacifica's frightened and pained wailing as Priscilla northwest, a sort of shocked quality in her eyes joined Mabel in comforting the small child. Her hands went right through Mabel's wings and despite being in the right frame of mind, she didn't really know what to do.

But even with Pacifica in tears, and Priscilla being unnaturally warm in response, noone was as shocked at Preston Northwest's violent act than Preston Himself.

Mabel had prayed that that had meant it would be a fluke.

And when he'd shaken himself free of whatever shocked dissonance he'd fallen into and immediately dropped down to his daughter's level to apologize, she'd thought she'd be right.

She'd thought for just a moment that she'd been sent here for this specific moment. To diffuse the situation and keep anything from getting worse. Saving Pacifica from a far less lucky fate on this day.

-

In a way she was right, shoving Pacifica around and leaving bruises was a fluke.

But she soon learned that just because neither of her parents ever raised a hand against her again, did not mean that she wasn't in danger any longer.

She lost track of the number of times she'd accompanied Pacifica into that ramshackle little closet her parents would lock her in, glowing like a nightlight so she wasn't afraid.

She was still plenty afraid, and Mabel found out very quickly that she was developing claustrophobia. But she was lessening the blow as much as she could.

Angels weren't made to feel anything more negative than sorrow, if they were far more of them would have fallen long ago. It's not impossible to feel anger, or hatred, but it's difficult.

Mabel was sure the feeling bubbling up in her stomach whenever she thought of Pacifica's parents, was simply frustration.

Their daughter had done nothing to deserve such treatment!

One time when Pacifica had been sent to bed, Mabel had overheard a conversation about the very topic.

If it weren't for the soundproof walls, it probably would have woken Pacifica too.

Priscilla and Preston were arguing, very loudly. She hadn't heard what had started the argument, but she knew it was about Pacifica. It was disconcerting, how deadly calm Preston was in the face of Priscilla's near screaming.

“That is Our Daughter, Preston!”

“She needs to learn manners. She'll be in the public sphere far more than other children, she can't afford to be too impolite.”

“Hah! Impolite nothing! This is cruel and unsual. She could simply go to a fnishing school if what you were worried about was manners.”

“Those idiots wouldn't know what needs to be done to upkeep the values of the Northwests!”

That was when the first bubbles of frustration built up in her abdomen.

“You know as well as I do that this isn't some type of discipline. It's abuse. I should just take Pacifica and leave.” Preston whirled around at her with that.

“And where would you go, Miss Mudflap '96?” Priscilla flinched at the title. “This family's money is the only thing keeping you both afloat, and you know that. I do not abuse my child. I haven't raised a hand to her.” Priscilla's lips pinched together tightly before she spun on her heel and stormed off.

Mabel had allowed herself a moment of hope, that Priscilla was going to pick up Pacifica and take them both away somewhere.

But she wasn't, she'd headed straight for the kitchen. Where she'd fished out a bottle of wine and began to drink.

For some time, Mabel pitied her. She was as much of a victim here as Pacifica was. Afraid to speak out and have her husband's ire and perfectionism angled toward her.

But eventually, somewhere down the road, she coped by nitpicking on Pacifica too, and Mabel's pity vanished.

Who were these people to treat such a young child so harshly?

Mabel had begun being as affectionate as possible to Pacifica, touching her gently when she was locked in the closet, wrapping her up in her wings when she'd been sent to bed without dinner, glowing like a gentle nightlight when Pacifica had grown to fear the dark.

She'd been tilting the scales in the girl's favor for some time. And maybe she had grown a little too attached due to her failure with Mason not too long ago, but still. She was going to be there for Pacifica.

She wasn't going to fail this charge.

-

Pacifica was eight. Around this time was usually when charges stopped acknowledging their guardians, and grew to stop being able to see them, but Pacifica never stopped. Only when she was alone, sure, but she would still talk to Mabel and ask for her help with a homework problem, or regale her days woes as if Mabel hadn't been there to see them.

Mabel had been tryong her hardest to not Let Pacifica's cruel upbringing change her. While she couldn't stop things like, priscilla deciding that Pacifica would look better as a blonde, she was at the least able to keep her charge from letting her parents false shows of discipline change her.

She wasn't necessarily good and kindhearted, Mabel could only do so much after all, but she wasn't cruel. She was normal, She had her group of friends that maybe were more on the 'clique' side, but she wasn't cruel to those outside of her group. Really, what more could Mabel have asked of her charge.

Anyway, today was shaping up to be interesting. It was valentines day, (a tradition that she and her brother had chuckled about between their wings when it formed) and Pacifica, as expected, got a load of valentines from her friends and anyone who happened to admire her. She gave away those fancy engraved Valentines to her entire homeroom, but she'd been working on something she hadn't even let Mabel see.

She'd hover over her shoulder during free period to catch a glance of it, but Pacifica only hunched further over whatever it was and sent her a teasing smirk.

So she let Pacifica have her secret. It would come out sooner or later.

-

And it did, she just didn't expect it to be quite as it was.

_To Mabel,_

_thank you for being there for me, You're the best Guardian Angel ever_

_Love, Pacifica._

“You must have someone more important to give a valentine to?” It came out as more of a question than anything else “What about that boy you were eyeing at recess?”

Pacifica shrugged.

“I like you more.”

Mabel smiled down at her charge, gently coming her free hand in Pacficia's hair as she stored the paper heart away in the folds of her dress.

“Then thank you Pacifica.” She leaned down to give her a small kiss on the forehead.

It didn't escape her how Pacifica blushed. Mabel hovered just barely over the floor, pretending to sit down as Pacifica flopped beside her.

“I'm gonna make you human one day.” Mabel raised a brow at her.

“Huh?” Pacifica nodded.

“I'm gonna make you human and then I'm gonna marry you.” Meira snorted out a small laugh, Many a charge before her and grown infatuated with their Guardian at some point. It wasn't anything new.

She brushed back Pacifica's bangs, noting with a bit of pleasure that her black roots were beginning to grow in again.

“Maybe you will Young one... maybe You will.”

Pacifica nodded and smiled to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is gonna be two ficlets, since I have two ideas and couldn't pick between them


	10. Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Otpprompt suggested by TheEruditeGrammacist) _Imagine your OTP/OT3 having never met before. They are very sick or badly injured and in the hospital, fading in and out of consciousness, and things are looking bleak with exception to the fact that whenever they fall asleep, they share a dream of getting to go anywhere they want together and do whatever they want, free from physical limitations, and become close through their sharing of this strange world as they attempt to recover. How the relationship grows is up to you._  
>  Bonus option B: they survive, and the first time they see each other in the waking world after, they share a knowing smile and/or embrace each other much to the confusion of others present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it's okay I took a couple of creative liberties with the prompt in question, if not I'm still completely open to requests so feel free to request a different prompt.

Darkness.

That was all she could take in at first. 

Thick, oppressive darkness, that threatened to strangle her if she stepped wrong.

At first she'd tried walking in any direction, tried to find something in the inky abyss, she walked and walked and walked, unsure if she was doing this for hours or years. Just around the time she finally grew bored of all of this exploring, she realized that she hadn't gotten tired or thirsty.

That was considerably strange since people should get tired after they walked for awhile.

So she hummed to herself and sat down angrily where she stood.

She had no idea where she was going, or even if she was making any progress at all, for all she knew she was walking in place and would keep walking in place until the end of eternity.

She pinched her lips together and huffed, annoyed.

Where even was she? Why was she somewhere where it looked like she was nowhere?

She thought back, to try and remember anything about her life previous that would lead her to being in a pitch black nothingness.... anything at all.

Did she have parents, did she have siblings, did she have any pets? What kind of job did she have? Or was she still a student? 

Her brain hurt from all the questions she couldn't answer.

Whatever happened Before, she had ended up here, with the boring dark darkness that wouldn't show her any answers. 

She could remember her own face in a mirror, she could remember the feeling of laying in a patch of clover, the things she must have learned in school, taking a big bite out of a hamburger, but nothing personal.

Not her favorite food, not her favorite subject in school, not if she played soccer or videogames, if she read books or wrote books or neither, nothing that would tell her anything of true use.

She crossed her legs angrily before folding her arms and glaring at the darkness around her. 

She could wait longer than this boring darkness could. Something interesting would happen and she'd be there to laugh in it's face.

It took quite a while of staring in determined silence at the inky black void before she realized she couldn't remember her name.  
-

She spent a timeless infinity glaring out into the darkness, shifting her weight every so often so she wouldn't get uncomfortable, and glaring in a new direction. She'd turn over some questions in her mind over and over, her name, her family, if she had any, anything that she could latch on to and try and hunt down more information about.

The blackness seemed to laugh at her inability to answer even the simplest of these questions.

She was just about to consider flopping back and letting the darkness win the silent game of chicken, when she heard the clacking of heels against the ground. 

Immediately she bolted to her feet, looking around excitedly and about to triumphantly grin at the blackness around her, eager to rub the new sensation in it's face.

Before she could start she caught sight of the person that was approaching.

She looked like she was probably shorter than her. Stout and cute, with long blonde hair falling over her shoulders in that way that has had so much work put into it it seemed effortless.

She hadn't seen her yet, she was actually facing the other direction and looking about, appearing just as frustrated as she was. So she decided to shout.

“Hey!” The blonde woman jumped in place before spinning on her heel to face her.

She was pretty. She had big green eyes that just barely peaked out from under straight bangs. She only took a moment to take the other woman in before she was running for her. “You're stuck here too!” She shouted as she came closer “That's great!” 

“Huh?” the shorter woman jolted back, with a brow raised and her lip curled in clear confusion. It took her a second to realize what she'd said.

“Uhm, well it's not good that you're here, or that I'm here but... it's great that we're here together cause now we're not alone in here!” Did any of that make sense? She hoped so.

The blonde woman's confused look had melted into clean shock as she stared at her. No doubt overwhelmed by too many words so quickly.

“....Right....” She mumbled, before carefully pushing away from her. She took a deep breath, shoulders rise and falling pointedly, before looking back at her.

“Who are you?” The Blonde girl asked. “I can't remember much, and I don't know why I'm here.”

Oh jeez, she didn't know either? 

“Well Uh... See... here's the thing. I don't really know either. I just woke up here and my body isn't getting tired or anything and...” She chuckled “I can't even remember my own name. Pathetic isn't it?”

The blonde woman looked at her with a sort of unreadable furrow of her brow. For a moment she was worried that she was going to agree with her about being pathetic. 

“Well... At least I'm not alone in that.” The Blonde woman chuckled dryly; She probably shouldn't have felt so relieved.

“I'm uh... sorry... We probably deserve to remember who we are.” She offered a hand to the Blonde woman who tentatively shook it.

“So what? First thing's first we invent names for eachother?” She shrugged.

“Why not?” The blonde woman pinched her lips together before slowly sitting down.

“Alright.” She joined her almost immediately. The blonde woman looked her up and down. She knew what she looked like, she had long fluffy brown hair and brown eyes and rosy cheeks. She couldn't remember much detail beyond that though. She couldn't entirely remember if she was pretty or plain or anything.

“You look like a Serenity to me.” She thought for a moment, turning the name over in her head. Serenity? She supposed it could fit. It didn't necessarily sound _right_ but she doubted anything but whatever her real name was would feel right.

“Serenity sounds good.” Serenity nodded to herself and noted the pleased look on the Blonde woman's face.

She had a really nice smile actually... But anyway, Serenity looked her up at down, her stout, almost chubby, frame, big green eyes that glinted with curiosity, long blonde hair that would probably shine if they had any real light in wherever they were...

Kind of like how they describe that Norse goddess... what was her name?

“Freya.” The blonde woman furrowed her brows and looked to the side, a sort of conflicted frown twisted at her lips before she sighed and shrugged.

“Freya works.” Freya leaned back on her hands. For a moment, she looked like she went blurry. Serenity jumped in place as Freya raised a brow at her.

“What?”

“It just... uh... It looked like....” Serenity shook her head. “Nevermind. So, I can't remember anything personal, and I guess you can't either, So I guess... let's talk about things we can remember?”

-  
As it turned out, how someone perceives something, even if they can't remember anything personal about it, can still tell a lot about them.

For instance, she described a hamburger as rich and sour if there's too much ketchup, Freya wrinkled her nose and called them greasy.

Or She ran her nails over her upper arm at the phantom itch from a field of grass, Freya chuckled and spoke of how difficult it was to get grass stains from your clothes.

Freya knew a lot about Golf. Specifically mini golf. But when Serenity asked if she liked it before she came here, Freya simply shrugged.

Serenity was in the same boat with Arts and crafts. When Freya had prompted her she had gone on and on about different kinds of yarn and the best way to stitch a scarf, but when Freya had chuckled and insisted it must be something that Serenity had loved, Serenity couldn't really answer yes or no.

They could infer though. It was best to assume something that someone knew a lot about must simply be something thy liked. 

Serenity apparently, really liked pigs, and Freya apparently liked history. She knew an awful lot about the founding of a bunch of different small towns. 

They both apparently knew a lot about music, but different genres.

Serenity thought they had gotten an idea of what they would be doing for the rest of whenever when something changed again.

Freya started going blurry again, but this time she noticed as it as happening. Before she started getting too blurry to properly see she'd been squinting at something over Serenity's shoulder. Narrating what she was seeing after Serenity had relayed that whatever Freya was seeing, it was only her. 

It apparently was some bright light that echoed voices she couldn't recognize.

Serenity wondered aloud if maybe that was the way out, but as soon as it had let the words slip out of her mouth an icy hand of dread began to clutch at her heart. 

It was selfish of her, really truly selfish; But she didn't want Freya to go. Freya was the only company she'd had here at all. She didn't want to go back to before. Serenity didn't even want to think about what she'd have to face if Freya left the dark place and didn't bring her with her. 

She was pretty sure she wouldn't have the gall to wait the darkness out again.  
-

Freya was worried.

She could feel something weird pulling at her chest every so often, a weird speck of light that grew bigger and then shrunk. 

Serenity would notice whenever she had these 'fits', and Freya felt bad for worrying her. Apparently she started getting so blurry She couldn't even see her entirely sometimes. 

Sure that might be a good thing, it might mean that, at least for her, whatever was going on might just end soon. 

But Serenity was a nice girl, she felt bad that she might end up leaving her alone in the dark. 

Freya couldn't even imagine how long Serenity must have been waiting, all alone, until she came around to cure her lonlieness. 

She was slowly starting to piece together what she could feel and hear on the other ide of wherever they were.

She heard a steady noise, almost like the beeping of a monitor, and she'd caught a couple of words. Things like 'dose' and 'accident', but other than that she was left as confused as ever. Was she in a hospital? Was that where they were? Some odd type of coma world where they were connected to eachother?

She'd shared these ideas with Serenity, who'd simply hummed and started to curl a strand of her curly brown hair around her finger.

“Maybe...” she'd hummed. “I guess it'd make sense.....” She looked at Freya oddly right then. Like she'd really honestly wanted to be happy for her, but she couldn't quite pull it off.

“I guess that means you're gonna be okay soon!” She'd bounced happily on her toes and hugged her but Freya would have had to be blind as well as apparently comatose to miss how worried she was.

She didn't want to leave Serenity alone. She really didn't.

-

Consciousness came at her in a snap.

When the light started to grow around her, she'd barely been able to turn to her friend and shout that she'd pull her back into the real world with her soon, to wait for her.

Her friend had shouted back, terrified, with tears filling her eyes, but by then she couldn't make out what she was saying.

When she woke up, she was staring at whitewashed tiles. The steady beep of a heart monitor ringing in her ear was accompanied, not by the chattering of nearby doctors or nurses, but the light snoring of someone at her bedside.

Her entire body felt so heavy, she was afraid of moving, that if she moved too much she'd hurt herself or her body just wouldn't respond. 

She could still feel though, she felt the soft, slightly scratchy hospital sheets over her legs, she felt the chill of the IV in her arm, She felt the dryness of her throat, nearly painful. 

She felt the hand in her own, and the weight of a head beside her bed. 

Serenity glanced down to the person sleeping with their head at the side of the bed. She couldn't make out their face, but they had hair like hers.

She was able to curl her hand around theirs, barely, and almost immediately, the person that was slumbering beside her woke up.

She learned that day that her real name was Mabel, and she had a twin brother that apparently loved her so much he'd been visiting almost every day since she'd gone under. Something about falling off of a cliff while 'exploring' with him and their friends, and she ended up hitting her head.

She couldn't move much, she could remember even less. But her brother, 'Dipper' apparently, assured her that that was normal (though he looked incredibly pained and kept wryly mumbling things like 'Talk about Ironic' and 'Stan and Ford'll find that _hilarious_ ') and he'll bring her scrapbook tomorrow to try and brush up her memories. 

She was barely able to form words by the end of visiting hours, voice cracking and stuttering. She'd asked him if they were ever friends with a girl named Freya. 

He'd looked at her funny and shook his head.

-

Freya wasn't as stubborn as Serenity. 

And now that Serenity wasn't here anymore, she had no reason to fight to stay here, When the light and the voices took her up next, she didn't try to ground herself in the darkness, didn't try to reach out for anyone here.

Her first waking thought was that somebody was holding her hand.

Her second was that the white tile hurt her eyes after being in the dark for so long.

She was in a slightly elevated position, as usual with hospital beds, and the beeping she'd been hearing had turned out to be her heart monitor.

Confused, she glanced down to her left hand, the one that felt like it was being held, and noticed how skinny she'd gotten. She wasn't usually that small if she remembered correctly, and attached to her loose hand was another, equally skinny, if slightly darker, hand, nails carefully painted a bright pink. 

“Sere-” her voice croaked uncomfortably, creaking and painful, her throat was dry.

The hand that gripped her own squeezed her tighter, and when she followed it up an equally skinny arm, past an IV tube, across a hospital gown, and to a pair of very familiar, very warm brown eyes, she smiled.

“It's Mabel actually.” Sere-Mabel smiled at her. “And You're name's Pacifica, not Freya. We were both in the same room of the coma ward. You were in a car accident, and I hit my head when I was adventuring with my brother.”

Frey... Pacifica, nodded, barely able to get her head to move with her. 

Serenity... Mabel... talked just as much in the real world as she did in their dark world. 

“I've been awake for like a week now, but apparently I was under for a good 6 months. The doctors say any longer and I might not have remembered how to talk.” she winked down at her. “Lucky lucky then huh? So like, you're probably hopped up on like a million different kinds of painkillers right now, so you're not feeling much pain, but you really need sleep. You're way more messed up than I am.” Mabel leaned forward to place a light kiss on Pacifica's cheek. “And frankly my brother's glaring at me with his finger hovering over the call button and if I want his help with getting me back into bed I'm gonna need to keep this short, but I'll be right in the bed a few feet over, okay?”

“Just look over there if you wanna talk okay?”


	11. Guardian Angel (Idea 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second Guardian Angel Idea (AKA the Pacifica one)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a Wierdmageddon-was-avoided-AU
> 
> TW:Character death, Kinda. (I mean Pacifica's a ghost for like 80% of the story)

A hostage negotiation. When she died, it was at the end of a hostage negotiation.

She felt like such an idiot.

She'd been in a jewelry store, picking up a pair of custom made matching pendants for a wedding present for her best friends. She had been so excited, they were going to be a pretty silver base with an opal owl and a ruby fox, Waverly's favorite animals were owls, and foxes were Avery's, so she had been sure they would love them.

Some asshole with a hunting rifle had stormed in to the shop and demanded everyone to the ground. He'd pocketed her present as well as whatever he could wrap his grimy fingers around. 

Some other lady with red hair tried to call the police while he was in the back room and he'd broken her hand with the butt of his rifle. Pacifica had been out of his sight range and she'd thought that that would give her an opening to do the same. 

She'd been able to text the address to the local police (Thank god for entering the digital age) but before she could get much out beyond 'jewel robber' he'd seen her hand darting hurriedly across the screen. 

He'd shot her in the side, he probably didn't want to kill anyone, but she could practically feel the bullet go in and out of her side. 

The pain had made everything blurry and faded after that. 

She bled out in the ambulance that was finally able to make it through after the criminal had been apprehended. 

And then she woke up.

There was no dark tunnel or bright light, no river styx and ferryman, no fire and brimstone.

She was standing outside, in the street, gazing upon a world that was blurry at the edges. It wasn't much of a jump of logic to realize she was dead. It was a shock of course, but really, was there any other explination?

It took some time, but she was able to navigate the world, She was able to figure out what had happened in her absence. 

Avery and Waverly had postponed their wedding, She found them, both without their rings, curled around eachother and sniffling in a hallowed church. Her wake. 

Pacifica couldn't resist trying to interact with them. They shouldn't have had to postpone their big day just because she was stupid and got her fool self shot. 

When her hand had passed through Waverly's shoulder the reality of the situation sunk in.

She really was dead. She was dead and her best friends were mourning her to the point where they put off what should have been the happiest day of their lives.

She fought down the bit of selfish happiness that coiled in her gut at that, Avery and Waverly were two of the only people In her life who truly cared about her. Sure they'd only been there at the start because of her parents, but she was only there because of their parents as well. They'd united through that and become the most unbreakable trio their town had seen.

Her parents were stony faced and poised, perfectly solemn for the affair. Pacifica noticed every so often her mother would close her eyes and take a deep breath through her nose, she recognized that trick, and realized how white her fathers knuckles had become through clenching his fists into his black pants. 

Her father gave the Eulogy. For just a moment after he'd left her side she'd seen her mother slump over for a moment, looking truly pained. 

Her father admitted in his speech that it's easy to take the presence of your child for granted, that no parent should have to bury their daughter, that Pacifica would shine like the brightest of stars, and a million other hollow comments that she could feel in her gut that he didn't really mean. 

The town of Gravity Falls gave her a postmortem civilian hero award and apparently the library was naming their new wing after her. She didn't think she deserved it. She knew that she had more or less died a martyr for some stupid jewelry heist 'saving a few dozen lives, if not the whole town by helping put the criminal away' in the words of Mayor Tyler. Maybe it was death putting her life into perspective, but she felt she didn't deserve it. She could only thin back to crestfallen faces in her younger years, red faced, enraged young adults recently, all coming undone under her words and her actions...She was quite the jerk wasn't she?

But still, shouldn't she have passed through to the... great beyond or whatever?

Was this some kind of hell? Wandering the Earth and watching everyone live on? That would be possibly the worst thing ever, and she was already wondering if she could find a ghost lawyer to sue the crap out of this system for cruel and unusual punishment. 

She was still there for Avery and Waverly's wedding. She made sure everything went off without a hitch, compelled the drunk uncle to fall alseep instead of storm the dancefloor and make a scene, made the breeze pick up just so to make the curtains flutter just so, and watched happily as their Maid of Honor, Avery's cousin in a last minute upgrade, gave her speech. 

When she accidentally overheard them in a quiet moment alone, Waverly admitted that it felt like she was still here somehow. They kissed and Pacifica smiled.

The next while passed by in a blur. With no one else to keep her eye on she decided to just wander. She could manipulate one or two things about the environment, but she still couldn't actually interact with anyone. 

So she supposed if she was here without any chance of finding other spirits to talk with, she'd just have to pass the time on her own. 

After all, it might not be forever, maybe she was just... supposed to learn a lesson or do one last thing before passing on, like in that old show with Jennifer Love Hewitt.

But how would she know what to do? She wanted to do a lot of things.

She wanted to look out for Avery and Waverly, she wanted to get the last word in with her parents for once, she wanted to make at least one bad thing she'd done right.

Well...She wasn't likely to do two of those without some kind of third party interference, but she could at least do one.

She just had to think of the right person.

She'd mistreated a lot of people, a lot of kids from her stupid childhood years to her last days, but who could she look out for without trying to beg forgiveness?

She did have some pride left after all.

She'd been 'sitting' on the ledge of a fountain as she was considering it. She'd been sitting there for a good couple of days at that point, before the glimmer of rhinestones caught her eye.

She glanced up for a breif moment to see some little girl, no older than nine or so, in a truly heinous pair of sparkly overalls. She was gripping the arm of a boy about about her age as she lead them around in some strange pattern.

It was a charming sight honestly. 

Kind of reminded her of....

Oh....

-

It didn't take very long to find her. 

Mabel Pines had gone pretty much exactly where she'd expected her to.

She was in UC Berkeley on a Lacrosse scholarship, studying fashion design. 

Her brother was apparently somewhere in Los Angeles, studying cinematography, and she was still chatting with those two girls that she'd always been around over the summers.

She wasn't really sure if she should even try to do this. 

It had been so long ago, Would Mabel even remember her?

Would it even matter? From what she'd gathered she still couldn't be seen. 

So... she supposed she could pay her recompense in a different way. Maybe if she was just a helpful little poltergeist?

That sounded well enough. 

She made sure Mabel's art file autosaved just before her laptop crashed from overheating.

-

It was... interesting; Following around someone she used to torment with the express purpose of helping her. 

Nothing too big obviously, keeping her papers from scattering on a windy day, making sure her colored pencils didn't do that horrible thing that they do when the wood comes right up to the point making them impossible to use.

Sometimes just for the heck of it she'd knock something off of a shelf like an angry cat. 

Mabel would only ever shrug and go back to whatever it was she was doing, So at least she didn't have to worry about getting her butt exorsized or something.

She followed her along when she went to visit her brother once. 

Big mistake.

He'd been working on something or another for his cinematography final, the trailer to a series he could see himself manning.

So he was making a ghost hunting trailer.

Apparently he'd borrowed some of the equipment Mabel's friends were using to investigate all the creepy weird things that happened back home in Gravity Falls to not only look official, but also to see if he actually did pick something up.

She knew she should have left at that point, she really should have. 

Dipper jostled the 'spectrometer' once and it almost immediately went haywire.

They both ended up taking it as a fluke and laughing it off, but Mabel was looking over her shoulder a little more often as she drove back to Berkeley before the end of Spring Break.

Pacifica huffed a sigh and ensured she wouldn't trip over a crack in the pavement during one of her gas station stops.

-

Was it possible to have developed a bit of a crush when the person doing the crushing was dead?

Maybe it was just the fact that she was supremely bored, not much to do but follow behind Mabel places, and end up learning more and more things about her. 

She was the master of sugar rushes and caffeine, when anyone near her dormroom was cramming for a test they always would go to her for special only slightly decent tasting beverages.

'Mabel juice' some sort of horrible sugar and caffeine abomination was her favorite to make.

She always made sure she had exactly 75 cents in her pocket before going to class, not in case she forgot a scantron or something, but for a candy bar from the vending machine should she need it.

She drank her tea with as much sugar as could be dissolved into it. But she was really fond of Jasmine and Chamomile as far as what kinds. 

She still slept with a stuffed rabbit, her roommate had long since stopped questioning that about her, but Pacifica still caught they way she'd stroke it's ears like she was afraid if she let go then it would vanish. The last speck of her childhood she could keep with her while she faced adulthood. 

She never outgrew those sweaters Pacifica would mock her for, she just wouldn't _wear_ them as often, for the sake of hot weather. But she practically used a small army of them in place of a comforter alongside a few fluffy blankets she must have taken from home. 

She and her brother texted eachother and skype'd a lot. And She'd write novel length emails to her great uncles and all of the friends she still had back in Gravity Falls.

It... It made Pacifica wish she'd been able to make friends with her when she'd still had the chance.

So yeah she definitely had a crush.

-

It had been a complete fluke when she'd finally been seen.

Mabel had been practicing in the soccer field they had on campus, since the lines in Lacrosse were about the same.

Pacifica had been trailing behind her, she'd decided to not 'help' Mabel with scoring or anything, She wanted to see how good Mabel was on her own.

It was fun to watch. Pacifica had never played lacrosse before, and she didn't understand a lot of the rules, but she cheered when Mabel made some really impressive looking goals.

There were odd times when after one of those, when she'd clap her hands and cheer, knowing that Mabel wasn't going to hear her, when she turned in Pacifica's general direction, she'd always look confused. 

Well obviously She wasn't actually being heard, nothing had been able to hear her, There must just be something behind her that she couldn't be bothered to check up on.

It wasn't even these distractions or anything, one of her teammates on the opposing practice group, the Lacrosse version of a goalie she supposed, was getting super angry every time Mabel would get past her. 

Mabel was 'first home' this time... whatever that was, but apparently, if the goalie's grumbling meant anything, she was normally just 'lousy Left Attack Wing' And she eventually, once she'd caught one of Mabel's shots for the goal, she'd been a little too overzealous in throwing the ball back into the field, she'd missed the mark and 'accidentally' got Mabel in the head.

Pacifica made sure she tripped over a particularly slippery mudpatch that was too much even for her cleats.

They sent Mabel to the infirmary one she began bleeding from just above her brow, and the Goalie was benched for the rest of practice.

Pacifica had worriedly trailed behind her the whole time, feeling tense for no specific reason whenever she noticed Mabel look in her direction. 

It was impossible. Avery and Waverly couldn't see her, neither of her parents could see her, aabel hadn't been able to see her any time before.

One tiny knock to the head couldn't change such a thing, could it?

-

**You've reached the voicemail of Dipper Pines! Please leave a message after the tone. And yes Mabel, our roadtrip to as many haunted places across America that we can is still on for this summer.**

-BEEP-

“Hey Dipper? It's Mabel. You know how you said that spectro-ghost-meter thing was probably just on the fritz when it acted up on me? Well... heh... funny story... I think I might actually be followed by a ghost... And It may or may not be Pacifica Northwest. Call me when you get this okay? Unless it's Monday before 5:00 cuz I have a final.”

-

**Hey!.... You've reached Mabel Pines' voicemail Suckaaaa! You know what to do! And if it's Dipper then take a deep breath, I'm okay, you're okay, Everyone's okay... Mmkay! Beep!**

-BEEP-

“Mabel? Are... are you trying to tell me You have a Ghost following you? And the Ghost of your old bully at that? Holy crap call me AS SOON as your final's over and you look at your phone okay?”

-

It was just a quiet day, two days before Dipper was supposed to pick her up for their haunted roadtrip, Mabel was hunched in her dorm room, her roommate long since gone home for the summer. She was sketching, Pacifica was watching how her wrist would flick just so as she finished a line of ruffles on the dress she was drawing. 

The room had been steadily dropping in temperature as she lost concentration, her ghost energy, or whatever, sucking all the heat from the room.

Eventually Mabel's eyes flickered up once, she closed her eyes and sighed. 

Her sketchbook closed with a snap and she leaned back against the pillows on her bed.

“Why are you following me?”

Pacifica startled, a small patch of frost building up on the window she'd been leaning against immediately dissolved in the sudden heat.

“Huh?”

Mabel didn't hear her, and when she looked around her gaze skirted right past her, but her lips pinched determinedly.

“Pacifica Northwest right? Why are you following me? You should have crossed over into the big shopping mall in the sky by now shouldn't you have?”

Pacifica chuckled slightly and looked around, searching for something she could answer Mabel with. 

Ah! 

She powered Opened Mabel's laptop with a flourish, maybe if she could interact with the electronics in that she could...?

Aha! Word document opened!

Mabel leaned over, a worried furrow to her brow as the underscore of a blank page blipped at her. 

Carefully, making sure she could get it right, Pacifica began to type.

_'Hello Mabel'_

“Sweet Moses I was just just guessing...” Mabel took a deep breath and smiled at the laptop, uncertain and weak. “Uh... Hi Pacifica, so yeah uh... why haven't you 'moved on' or whatever?”

Pacifica closed her eyes and took a deep breath that didn't actually do anything.

_'I don't know. I've been thinking it's because I need to make up for the bad things I did when I was alive.'_

Mabel hummed, the corner of her lips pinching into a confused scowl. 

“Right.. so why choose me? I mean you were kind of a jerk when we would run into eachother, but you weren't too bad to me?”

_'I dunno, I was thinking of who I could help and I saw a pair of twins in a park that gave me the idea.'_

“Ah, okay...Well, I'd be happy to help you move on or something... it'd help if I could see or hear you, but this works too I guess. So what you're gonna keep following me and like... help out if you can with things?”

_'In theory. Think of me as a Guardian Angel.'_


	12. Lost girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (susie1X1)my parents kicked me out and you’re the only person that bothered to ask the crying, obviously lost kid with a suitcase if something was the matter

Honestly, she wasn't even sure where she was anymore.

Her pretty polka dotted yellow sundress was stained with dirt from tripping over herself far too many times. Grass stains had turned her lacy off white stockings a muggy gross green, and her yellow pointed toe heels may as well have been ruined, they felt like they were one misstep from breaking as is. There was a warm winter jacket thrown heavily over her shoulders, right now it was hot and itchy, but she'd had mind enough to bring it for when it would get cold later.

A picnic.

This horrible terrible day had started out on a company picnic she'd been toted along to.

It was the stupidest thing. 

She'd just been wandering about the little field after her father had finished his 'prove you have a real family' quota and some boy, maybe a little older than her, had decided she was a good 'target'.

Ugh. She as completely not in the mood, son of an investor or not, she wasn't letting this dickbag mentally undress her while he talked about how good for both of our families it would be to date him. 

She insisted casually that she had a boyfriend. A lie obviously, not only was she single, she was also very lesbian (in the closet or not)

He didn't believe her and kept hounding her. There had been no rescue, nobody she knew well enough who would respond to her looks of 'someone get me out of here'.

Eventually she had to just flat out say she wasn't interested, her voice as firm as she could make it without drawing too much attention to herself.

He called her a 'frigid bitch' in what she could only describe as an irate screech.

Suddenly there had been so many eyes on her. 

Especially her parents.

She'd been sent home early, ordered with the ring of a bell to not leave her room until her father came to let her out. 

Today was going to end with screaming, she knew that immediately. 

She just hadn't known how bad.

She'd maybe made some poor vocabulary choices when arguing with her father about how it hadn't been her to cause the scene. For only a moment her mother had agreed with her, that it wasn't her fault the boy couldn't take rejection.

But then He'd mentioned how her refusal of even a single date had lost him a contract with the boy's father, and her mother was lost as an ally.

The arguments continued from that point onward, how she'd been there to prove he even had a daughter not to schmooze, how she couldn't just flirt with everyone on the off chance that she'd give them a better deal in the next contract her father would sign.

Height of passion in the middle of an argument wasn't exactly a good time to come out.

But she let it slip.

And everything after that was a blur of Chaos. Pain that left bruises on her wrists, shouts of 'no daughter of ours' and screaming so loud she couldn't even hear the chime of that bell.

It felt like it had gotten way too bad over something so small, but maybe that was just because it had already been a long time coming.

Her mother was crying when she handed her a big suitcase, like something out of an old movie.

She'd been given a half hour to pack. Given a half hour to put her life into a tiny suitcase. She'd been told that they weren't going to freeze her savings, the things that were legally hers, but that was as far as 'charity' would go. 

She had her savings and that was it.

She was seventeen years old and she had just been disowned.

She opted out of a taxi, choosing instead to walk as she contemplated what the hell to do.

Eventually she'd ended up here, in a park somewhere in the heart of the city that she didn't recognize, the tears that had been a near constant stream for the entire trip had finally ceased and whittled down to small sniffles every so often. 

Every so often strangers that would pass her by would take a glance at her ruddy appearance, then at her suitcase, and hurriedly look away. Not their problem some punk teenager got kicked out after all.

She took a deep breath, looking around for somewhere to sit. She wasn't in a familiar park, but she knew she was still in town, so she could probably get her bearings if she could find somewhere to rest and get her head on straight.

Unfortunately the only place she could see that wasn't reclining in the filthy grass (as if her dress wasn't already ruined enough, no thank you.) Was the edge of a fountain, with someone else already there.

She sighed, hopefully that someone, a girl with some big sketchboard she was focused intently on, wouldn't even notice she was there, or simply glance up and go back to work like everyone else seemed to.

The grime on the side of the fountain didn't exactly pass her by without notice, but she was at least able to keep a tight lid on the revulsion that tried to roll it's way through her gut. 

And so there she sat for a time, hands folded in between her legs and curled loosely around the handle of her suitcase, head swiveling back and forth across the landscape, willing herself to remember where she could possibly be in the city so she could find her way to familiar ground, or at the least find somewhere to stay the night.

The girl beside her, the girl with the long brown hair and well into her own world of whatever she was sketching, yawned surprisingly loudly, the slight dimming light of the near setting sun making her look up from her pad and rubbing at her eye.

Pacifica pulled her jacket tighter against her shoulders and looked around again, ripping her eyes from the, frankly, lovely girl, in favor of a certainly more important matter at hand. 

Nothing about this place looked familiar. Where was she going to sleep tonight? On a bench? Under a tree? She had no idea where any hotels were in this area, or even if there were any at all.

Should she even try to find one?

She had a lot saved up from birthday gifts from relatives and Important People who didn't want to get her something she already had. 

But, that still wasn't much was it? She couldn't just swipe a card and have her parents take care of it anymore, she had to keep track of everything didn't she? 

Her breath caught on a small sob, and she heard more than saw the brown haired girl beside her jump in place. 

“Oh... oh man, holy crap, are you okay?” She looked up in surprise when the brown haired girl closed her sketchbook with a soft clatter and immediately scooted closer to her. Pacifica jumped in place when she got within arm's reach. 

She'd thought for a moment that she'd been recognized, but no, this girl really was just worried. 

First person out of all of them 

She could feel the tears stinging at her eyes again. But this time it felt more like relief than anything else. Someone had noticed her.

Without her family name behind her she was still _there_.

The small choked sob she'd let out multiplied, over and over until she was hunched over herself, the strange brunette girl leaned over beside her with a hand on her back.

She just quietly let Pacifica sit there, crying her eyes out and patiently waiting until she was done.

She didn't even know who this girl was and she was so kind...

When she finally pulled herself together the stranger was still there, patting her back and smiling down at her.

“I'm guessing ya really needed that huh?”

Pacifica sniffled and nodded.

“Would It be too stupid to ask if you have anywhere to stay tonight?”

She nodded her head again. She wasn't sure if she could trust her voice.

“M'kay, You're coming home with me.”

She didn't even pause to let Pacifica answer she just stood up, got her portfolio all together, and began to walk. 

Who even was this girl?

She turned when she noticed Pacific wasn't following her and made a quick 'follow me' gesture.

“Come on! I'm not letting a girl my age stay alone in the concrete jungle overnight! That's how human trafficking happens!”

She walked back and grabbed up Pacifica's suitcase with her free hand, now she didn't even have a choice in the matter.

Though, if she were being honest with herself she probably would have chosen to do this anyway. It would beat sleeping under a bench on her first day of homelessness.

It was about five minutes into the long walk before the strange brunette spoke up.

“Oh jeez! I totally forgot! I'm Mabel, Mabel Pines.” She smiled over at Pacifica expectantly.

“Pacifica Northwest..” the expected gasp of surprise made her gut sort of flip over.

“You mean like the super rich Northwests?!” she practically screamed and Paifica was already expecting the dreaded question of 'why the hell was she out in a dirty sundress and stockings if she was a Northwest?'

But the question never came. After Pacifica's affirming nod Mabel's shocked expression fell into some sort of sad realization. 

“Oh jeez...” She knew.

The curved around streets and bends until she finally guided Pacifica toward a simple, if small, house. 

Mabel gave her back her suitcase to pull a large keyring from her pocket. There were only like 5 keys on the damn thing, but she'd loaded it full of so many keychains it must be way too heavy. 

She fumbled onehandedly for a moment, fingers tripping over a sick bell that looked like a pig, before she unlocked the door with the right key (it had Hello kitty on it)

When she opened the door there was a guy about their age in the living room, couch and surrounding table covered in papers he would scribble into periodically.

“Hey Mabes.”

“Hey Dipdop....”

'Dipdop' apparently wasn't a nickname she used very often, he'd turned in his seat to raise a curious brow almost immediately afterward.

“Mabel I thought we agreed 'Dipdop' was your code fo-” His eyes focused on Pacifica before realization settled over his features “When you're breaking rules”

“You know how Mom and dad said 'No strays' after they finally accepted Waddles? So this is Pacifica.”

She raised a hand to wave nervously. 

'Dipdop's expression flatlined when e looked over at Mabel again.

“You're not dragging me into this one Mabel. I'm in the middle of m essay on ectoplasmic residue.” Mabel made a 'pshh' noise through a retainer Pacifica hadn't seen before.

“Just cause you got them to let me keep Waddles doesn't mean I don't know how to convince them of things when you're not around!” He grumbled and turned back to his work.

Mabel smiled at her then, patting her shoulder and pointing to the kitchen.

“Lemme get you some hot chocolate, and then you can tell me all about this most horrible day, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who hasn't forgotten about this compilation! This nerd writer! Sorry its been taking so long guys, idk I guess my brain doesn't want to do fluff rn. I'm kinda caught up in my other stories, both planned ones and published ones. I'm not giving up this fic, but it's not very high on the priority list ya know?


	13. Waddles is an old old pig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Requested by radiowrittenheart) Married with a Kid fluff

Mabel Pines worked at one of the biggest Fashion Headquarters of New York City, And it was something she'd never really expected to do with her life. A million other things had flitted through her thoughts as she'd grown up, zoologist specializing in Farm animals, Singer, Model, Wedding Planner, a ghost hunter alongside Dipper, and a hundred other jobs.

But eventually Candy had noticed her doodling into her notebook, sketching out a redesign of a Super hero's uniform, and she'd commented that she could get into fashion design if she wanted to. On a whim she'd agreed, composed a portfolio and signed up for a few design classes.

It was like something had clicked in her brain, suddenly she would be flooded with ideas; ways to take some of her old sweater designs, things she'd rigged up on her own when she was 12, and applied them to dresses and skirts and blouses.

Eventually she was working on a fashion line, her 'quirky' unique designs were already starting to be incorporated into cardigans.

Her correspondence between her friends were amazing, she loved getting Candy to tell her about her work as Old Man McGucket's partner, and it was easy as breathing to get Grenda to tell her about the duties of being a Baroness of Austria. Dipper's stories from his 'Haunted roadtrip' grand tour would get more and more interesting, especially when he'd hit Portland and got Wendy to appear as a guest star on his show. Soos would always send her pictures of his kids and his attractions at the Mystery Shack, Melody was expecting again, that would bring the child count to 4. Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were somewhere in South America, looking for El Dorado. By the last letter, Stan was super tired of looking at the same map over and over again, but Ford was confident that they were getting closer. Those two nerds were in their early 70s and Stan's right hook was apparently as mean as it ever was. 

But she wasn't as aware of everything as she ended up being with Pacifica.

At first it had been letters over Email like Stan and Ford, then texting, then calls that lasted well past midnight. 

Pacifica ended up moving to New York under her own Business venture. She claimed that there was nothing for her on the West Coast anymore, asked if Mabel didn't mind having a roommate.

That was... oh that had to have been years ago. They lived together for a year before they'd just sort of... fallen into place. Their relationship was about the same as it always was. Pacifica came home from her accounting firm, Mabel from Glamour, they'd chat about their day, Mabel would teach Pacifica a new dish to make for Dinner, watch a movie while they ate. 

But then there was a copious amount of kisses and cuddling accompanied by that schedule. And a distinct lack of the strange feeling that she now knew had been jealously whenever Pacifica would skip out to go on a date. 

Then there had to have been... ah at least another year of that before She'd scrounged together a decent amount of her salary to affix a hunk of heart-shaped Rose Quartz onto a golden band. 

There were a few days that ranked as the best of her life. Beating Bill and only having to worry about loosing Grunkle Stan for a couple of hours was tied for number one in lieu of her Wedding day. 

They went back to the West coast very specifically to have their wedding in Gravity Falls, in the Shack. The whole town more or less came, alongside some of their other friends. 

Toby Determined had to be escorted off of the dance floor after he made Stanley Jr (Soos' youngest at the time) cry. But other than that it was practically a blur of happiness, white dresses, and cake with far more edible glitter than was entirely necessary. 

Dipper cried from his spot beside her as her Best Man of Honor, so did Soos and Stan from the audience, Grenda from her co-bridesmaid spot, Pacifica's friends Avery and Waverly on her side of the audience, and her mother. Pacifica invited her parents, but was openly relived when they didn't show up. 

They went back to New York. They had the bands now, and even though it wasn't technically different, it... it kind of felt different. 

Then, one day, Pacifica had told her she wanted to be a mom. 

Mabel wanted to be a mom, she always had, it wasn't a secret. But she'd never wanted to push Pacifica, that was her fight to have; so she'd never made the assumption that Pacifica was just as willing to jump feet first into parenthood as she was.

On their first anniversary they'd received a small box in the mail, a silver wrapped gift with the initials 'PN' on the tag. Upon opening They'd found a silver wine opener and the remains of a wooden and brass bell. Pacifica read the letter on the inside aloud. All it had said was 'Do what you see fit.' 

Pacifica sold the opener on eBay and burned the bell pieces, but something had changed in her stance. 

They'd talked about it after she'd told Mabel, why she was okay now. She'd buried her ghosts, she knew, no matter what, she'd be better than her parents, especially with Mabel by her side. 

So, naturally, after a big kiss and a lot of celebration, they discussed what they wanted to do. Adopt or sperm donor. 

Mabel knew that she'd be a nightmare if it was her, not to mention maternity clothes would look weird on a fashion designer, and Pacifica was afraid of what pregnancy would do to her hormones, so they decided on adoption. 

Fluffy brown hair bounced with every step as She walked home. The subway had dropped her off a good three blocks away from their apartment, but she couldn't shorten that length, so she'd walk. 

She waved at their landlord, smiled at a young couple in the elevator, pet the stray cat that had claimed their complex for her own, and felt just a touch of warmth in her gut when she heard a pig squealing and a child shrieking with laughter a few doors down.

Oh it had been quite the process to get their little one. She'd been so impossible in the playroom around all the little children, she wanted to play with everyone, she wanted to adopt everyone. 

Pacifica had been the one to notice her.

She'd been sitting in the plastic toy house, her hands covering her face, while a bunch of kids just outside the playset had been playing, what she could only assume was Pirates. 

Watching her wife stride over to the toy contraption with that confident stride of hers, toward the little one that caught her eye.

Well to be completely honest it had left Mabel a little weak In the knees. 

She'd been quick to follow though, and once she'd caught a better look at the little girl she couldn't hold back a soft coo. She had long, wavy black hair, held back in sparky yellow scrunchy pigtails. She was wearing these pink overalls and a rainbow striped shirt. 

She was adorable to Mabel, but it seemed like Pacifica had immediately fallen in love. 

Her dark eyes peeked shyly up over the tips of her fingers at them both. She'd squeaked in surprise and covered her eyes with her hands again.

“'m Readin'.” She mumbled. 

She wasn't holding a book, she just didn't want to play or talk to people.

Pacifca had crouched to her level, she wasn't wearing anything intimidating, just a purple blouse and the lavender pleated skirt Mabel had gotten her for her birthday before they had gotten together.

She'd drawn the little girl out from her 'book' with a quiet question of if she wanted to color. 

She'd introduced herself after She'd giggled and told them she didn't even know how to read yet.

“Lily” 

“Nice to meet you Lily, I'm Pacifica, but you can call me Paz if you want. And this is my wife Mabel.”

Her full name apparently was Liliana Sanchez, but she was too little to feel confident saying her full name just yet apparently.

When she'd smiled up at Mabel after she'd showed her the dress design, she'd showed off a crooked smile and an overbite of babyteeth.

She'd just turned four a week ago apparently.

And Mabel had fallen in love too.

It took some time, Lily threw tantrums if they were late, and always begged her teachers to let the both of them, or one or the other depending on their schedules, to stay later than they should be.

It took some time to safety gate the heck out of their loft, and to set up their children's room. They gave it tastefully pastel yellow walls, as that was Lily's favorite color.

And so, within a year, Lily Sanchez-Pines was a member of the family.

Dipper, Stan, Grenda, and her parents, all demanded as many pictures as possible. Mabel had just sort of taken to dumping her camera into an email and Cc-ing everyone onto it.

Last Hannukah had been at the Shack, and Stan had almost kidnapped her. She'd been drawing on Ford's hand, babbling about her favorite cartoon,Elena and Shadow, when Stan had picked her up, announced to her and Pacifica that she was the Baby of the Seas now, and dramatically marched for the Stanleymobile. 

It was the best game of play chase she'd ever played. Lily shrieking with laughter as she was passed between Stan and Ford, then to Dipper, or Soos, until eventually Mabel had beaten her family and reclaimed her child, zipping between Stan and Ford and then pulling out her Grappling Hook to shoot into the trees.

She'd taken very good care of her favored weapon over the years, she was happy that it could still come in handy.

That was the year that Lily first called her 'Mommy' And Pacifica 'Mama'

Now Lily was seven, and thankfully elementary school schedule, along with her afterschool soccer, took up about the same time as Pacifica's shift at the accounting firm.

She paused infront of the door, her key hovering inches over the lock.

She could hear Waddles inside, Lily's high shrieks of laughter, Pacifica's heels against the ground.

But was that?

She'd just about unlocked the bolt to investigate when the door slammed open.

“MABEL!”

She had a strong beefy pair of arms around her before she even knew what was happening.

“Grenda?!” She knew she heard her boisterous laugh!

“Surprise! Guess who's back in the States for Fashion week! It's Grenda!” Grenda emphasized her announcement with an extra squeeze in excitement. Mabel could feel her own exuberance bubbling up as she wrapped her arms around Grenda and squeezed her back with what she had. Which, thankfully, was a lot. Mabel was still a very strong woman after all. 

Pacifica and Marius were sitting on the island in the kitchen, Marius looked tired, jetlag she was sure, as he was nursing a cup of coffee. 

Candy was bounding over from where she'd been at the couch. Lily and her various 'cousins' were all watching Elena and Shadow together with Waddles as their pillow.

“Mabel!” Candy raced over and wrapped her arms around her back, creating, effectively, a Mabel Sandwich. “This is your first Fashion Week as a head designer, yes?”

“Candy!” Grenda loosened her grip just enough for Mabel to turn in her grasp and hug Candy back. “Yeah it is! You came all the way from Oregon, AND Austria, just to cheer me on?” Grenda scoffed as though it were the easiest question ever.

“Duh! Being a Baroness is great and all but ya gotta remember you're just a kid from Roadkill County sometimes ya know? And then ya gotta remember one of your BEST FRIENDS is heading a line on Fashion Week!” Neither Candy nor Grenda would let her go, so, awkwardly, them three made their way to the kitchen. 

Pacifica smiled fondly at her and carefully wriggled her way between Grenda and Candy to kiss Mabel's cheek and give her a quick 'Welcome home'. Marius chuckled around his coffee when the cartoon went to commercial and Lily let out a loud gasp from her spot on Waddles.

“Mom's been trapped! We gotta save her!” Lily patted Waddles rump gently and the fat old pig began to stand.

“Mutti's trapping Lily's Mutti!” Mini Mabel cried out, her dark blue eyes sparkling with vengeance.

“Mutti's trapping Tant Mabel!” Little Candy thrust a carrot stick into the air as though it were his mighty sword.

“Lily's Mutti is trapped!” Grenda jr. (the Sequel) stumbled to their feet, nearly tripping over their shoelaces in the process.

With four battle cries, a small army of children came barreling from across the main room toward the kitchen. Waddles lazily trotting up behind them. 

Grenda laughed and released her hold on Mabel to play 'Monster', raising her hands, fingers sprawled into the universal symbol of claws, and snarled. 

Little Candy, and Mini Mabel, being the youngest at 5 and 6, both stumbled back and cried out in mock terror before running back and away. Grenda Jr. and Lily, both 7, were not afraid of such monsters and let out another battle cry as they playfully knocked at Candy's legs and tried to pry Mabel from her hug. 

Candy dutifully threw herself away with a shriek of defeat and sprawled on the ground for the two of them to boast their victory. 

Mabel, now free from the clutches of two of her closest friends, shook her head and chuckled. She waved at Marius, now that she had hands to spare, kissed Pacifica on the cheek, Patted Waddles' head, and wandered over to her little girl.

“What getting kidnapped means I don't get a Welcome Home?” Lily turned to look at her, before dutifully jumping up and grabbing her by the hem of her sweater. Compliantly, Mabel leaned down for Lily to grab her, and received a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Welcome Home Mom!” Mabel leaned in to kiss her daughter on her cheek, before quickly changing paths and blowing a raspberry onto her shoulder.

Lily squealed and ran away, hands covering her neck in affront.

“Glad to be home!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In every story where Mabel's profession isn't important she's gonna be a fashion designer, it is law


	14. The Live Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No prompt, just wanted to do a Soft Apocalypse AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHAT'S BACK MOTHERFUCKERS

The world had crumbled around her when she was very young. She couldn't have been any older than seven really, but she'd lost track of the specific day long ago.

Pacifica didn't remember much about the day, the coughing from every corner of her house, the hacking wheezing pain filled coughing. Everyone was sick except for her, but somehow, despite her illness, her nanny had still been trying to take care of her, but she couldn't stand to see her friend and playmate in such pain. So she carefully lead the aging, rail thin woman to her bed and asked what she had to do to make everyone better.

Her nanny had only patted her cheeks and told her to be a good little girl and not get the sniffles herself.

Somehow Pacifica had doubted even back then, that what everyone was sick with was simply the sniffles. So she ran into the kitchen, something she'd rarely done over the years, and tried her hardest to get together the things that made her feel better when she was sick. She hadn't known how to make soup, but she had tea for everyone. Special tea with lemon and honey. She made as many cups of tea as she possibly could.

She remembered delivering them room by room around the workers living area, but some small mercy of her childhood mind refused to let her see what had no doubt been the dead and dying in her home.

She couldn't even remember bringing her parents their tea. Only running back to her rown room in tears and not daring to check her own bed for her Nanny.

She barely understood death as a concept back then, but she at least knew one thing. That she was on her own. And she couldn't stay in her home alone. She would be a sitting duck.

So she'd packed the biggest backpack she had, it had been cold outside she she'd at least had the good sense to bundle up, just as Nanny would always insist of her, packed a lunchbox with as much food as she could cram into it, and went off on her own.

She would have died so quickly if the Valentino's hadn't found her when they did. While her memories of the day she stopped being a Northwest was hazy with childhood trauma, the day she became a Valentino was as clear as day.

She'd spaced her food as well as she could for a child. It was difficult sure, she was seven, she got hungry a lot. But she was able to last a full two days on the provisions in her lunchbox, and she'd struggled her way through the library when she'd left, until she found a book on plants. It didn't have a lot that she could understand, but she'd lived another solid day off of dandelions and pine needles. She'd been looking for someone that could help her, maybe some nice other family had lost their daughter and they could adopt her.

Her shoes had been broken (how was she supposed to know that mary janes couldn't last in the forest?), she didn't have any clothes that were both built for warmth and dry, so while her jacket and snow pants were drying she was wearing her 'hot weather' dress and stockings, shivering and trying to find a hollow tree like they always had in cartoons.

But then she'd heard a deep, kinda like an older kids, and she'd called out to it.

And sure enough there had been an older kid, and a weirdly smiley lady with glasses.

And that was how she met Robbie and Janice Valentino. Turned out they didn't loose a daughter, they'd lost Mr. Valentino to the same sick that took out her whole house. She'd thought that since in movies kids only got adopted when the parents were missing a kid, that that would be that.

But when she'd asked if they had any idea where she could go to find other people, Janice had looked horrified and insisted she join them. Robbie had even up his hoodie at only a little prompting, and to this day she kept the black hoodie.

There had been only a few people left in the shambles of what was once her hometown, but the few that did survive had become a migrant community. A band of plague survivors fallen from grace and turned to wanderers.

She'd barely understood the real implications of what had happened when she'd been shown to the town, now little more than a dozen people. Mr. McGucket took her in almost as quickly as Janice and Robbie had, Wendy had lifted her up and announced loudly that she was her new baby sister. Soos and Mr. Pines had been a little harder to warm up to her, her parents, as it seemed, had really messed with them over the years. But eventually she'd proved herself useful enough to break the ice.

But all of that was years ago. She was twelve now, in the old world she would have been considerdd only a child in the barest terms now, and while the wandering hadn't stopped, and they'd even lost a few of their own in disasters (though some part of her would always wonder if Toby being crushed by that landslide was truly an accident) they were for the most part, still whole and hale.

They had a toddler in their ranks, the only survivor if his family, just like her, and honestly? Despite being borderline annoying at times, Gideon's improvised comedy was a balm on the wracked nerves of the older ones.

She barely remembered a time before the wandering. And Gideon didn't remember it at all. So of course things that would make Stan punch a tree until his knuckles bloodied, or Susan to shrink in on herself and begin mumbling what sounded like diner orders to herself, and McGucket to shriek and holler, he'd simply crack a somewhat nervous joke and try to make the rest of them laugh.

She, Gideon, Grenda, and Candy, they were the lucky ones.

So when Candy found evidence of a man made fire on their continuous journey south, they'd been the least suspicious. Clearly it was another caravan of people. And maybe that meant allies. Sure at the beginning they'd run into a number of desperate, angry people, compound bows and compressed air guns waving in every direction as they'd tried to take their provisions.

Key word: Tried. That was also the day Pacifica learned to shoot with a slingshot, and knocked someone out with one of her mother's big earrings that she'd kept for sentimental reasons.

The Grownups muttered among themselves about every possible bad thing that could come of this, while she and the other Kids (though, they weren't really kids anymore) discussed just who must be in a nearby caravan. Maybe they'd crossed hairs with people who came from further south, or other northerners that left before them that they'd caught up with. Eastern people were generally thieves so they hoped against that, but Western people for the most part had taken to the seas. Something that had Grenda booming with laughter at the thought. They'd actually ran into a caravan of boaters on one of their stops on land, they had been too numerous and their boats too small, so they couldn't join the boating caravan. Though Stan had looked for a moment like he had truly wanted to go.

Candy was their best tracker, Well... okay Wendy was their best tracker, but she was muttering in suspicion amongst other Grownups, so Candy was the tracker they could rely on.

“It was a small fire” She observed quietly, and that was true the scorch marks on he ground were far smaller than that of a normal traveling group.

“Perhaps two or three people at the most. It would be too small to keep any more than three people warm.”

“Who wants to travel with only two other people?” Gideon looked around them, as though whoever was in such a small group would appear from the bushes.

“Sounds boring.” Grenda agreed, crossing her arms and huffing.

“Maybe there are more of them.” She offered. “Maybe the two or three people were just scouting ahead or something.”

“Then how could we have not run into such a big caravan, if they sent people to scout in advance?” Candy adjusted her glasses—a pair that she'd snagged from a desecrated house that were close enough to what she needed to take—and began to walk toward a slightly beaten up bush.

“Perhaps they left in a rush. It seems as though there are signs of a hasty escape.”

“Woah!” Grenda half shouted her amazement as she ran up to meet Candy, paractically sending her over in the process. “Were they attacked? Are there signs of some kinda fight?”

“Now who in tarnation would care enough about two or three people to give them a hard time for anything? I doubt they had much supplies on 'em.”

“No, we travel light.” The introduction of a new voice practically made Pacifica jump out of her skin. Of course the surprise rather quickly settled into cold dread as two beings, stocky and broad, descended from the tree branches.

But the two people didn't attack. The boy didn't grab at Candy and hold a knife to her throat, the girl didn't punch Gideon in the face, though she was close enough to.

The two... siblings, she supposed... simply stood there, as though people that hid in trees were the simplest thing in the world.

Pacifica hadn't known many other girls in her life sure. Grenda, Candy, and Wendy were pretty much the only girls even remotely close to her age in their caravan, but she had eyes. She could tell that in the most honest way possible, the girl in front of her was lovely.

She had long brown hair held back into a braid, ribbons and flowers were strung into the long tail, and while her outfit was mainly dark, a long sweater in dark blue and brown cargo pants, she was covered, practically head to toe, in colorful bandages. Pacifica honestly didn't know where she'd even been able to get a hold of such colorful things, wherever their caravan had been, everything in bright colors, the things that would draw people's eye first while looting, were long since gone. But she wore the colorful applications like some sort of fashion statement.

She was beautiful, and the warm smile that she graced the lot of them with only emphasized that.

“We'd heard some people on the borders of our territory, and we wanted to make sure you guys weren't like... you know... evil or something.” The boy muttered, his hair was long and curly, not dissimilar to the girls' but a tattered baseball cap was rested on his head in place of colorful ribbons and flowers. His cap, alongside the rest of his clothes, were in different shades of greens, browns, and blacks. He wasn't near as colorful as his sister(?)

“But you totally aren't!” The colorful girl chirped, smiling widely at them and exposing Pacifica to a bright smile with slightly crooked teeth. “You guys look super nice!”

They were barely out of immediate eyesight of the grownups, so for the most part they had to remain quiet, lest they treat the new children with more suspicion than necessary.

“Uhm, excuse me.” Candy piped in. “You said your territory?” With that the siblings glanced at eachother. They seemed to have a conversation of gestures and looks before turning back to their small group.

“Uh yeah, a group of survivors made a safezone, no bandits, no wild animals.” The boy stated simply, almost clinically.

“Our Great-Uncle Stanford set it up! We've got crops and some cattle and pigs!” She gasped as though remembering something wonderful. “Oh my gosh! Dipper, it's been so long since we've had new people! Waddles is going to go ballistic!”

'Dipper' smiled in that same sort of half amused way that the grownups would watch their antics, and turned to the rest of them again.

“I'm sure he will Mabel. But for now, we gotta talk to their caravan leaders. They might not even let us take them. Remember that tribe last spring?” Mabel's smile faded and she looked over at them.

Pacifica wanted to bring that bright smile back for a moment. She didn't know anything about this girl, but in the five years between being indoctrinated into the caravan, Pacifica had seen colors fade from clothes and the world as greens and blues overtook the world. Yellows and reds and purples and pinks were slowly being lost.

Mabel seemed to have the last spots of vibrant color in the world.

“I'm sure they'll say yes.” She responded. She saw Grenda turn from the corner of her eye.

“MR. PINES! WE GOT A COUPLE LIVE ONES!”

Mabel smiled at her again, her crooked grin had a light of it's own in the watery dimness of the early morning.

“You're gonna love Piedmont, I can tell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it seemed the inspiration I needed to pick this compilation back up was inspiration formed from Spite. Spitespiration if you will. I mean, what a good day to remember that Pacifica is a lesbian and Mabel is Pan and they're in love, right?

**Author's Note:**

> So what I tend to do when I can't focus ends up being write series' of drabbles


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